Integrating technology into the Montessori elementary classroom

Montessori Life, Spring 2003 by Hubbell, Elizabeth Ross

Maria Montessori created hundreds of beautiful materials, especially within the math curriculum. She believed that a child had to experience many different methods of finding an answer in order to understand the process truly. I find that technology is simply one more method of showing what I am trying to teach. Different children have different learning styles, and having a variety of vehicles through which to deliver and explore can only be beneficial.

When I first began to integrate technology into the classroom, I used software to complement the children's lessons in early reading skills and memorizing math facts. (Reader Rabbit and Edmark's Mighty Math series are among my favorites.) Overtime, as my skills and my students' progressed, I began using technology as a production tool, as an organizational tool, as a tool to show what otherwise might have been very difficult or expensive to show, such as how the eye works or to take a virtual tour of a faraway place.

Now, my students create PowerPoint presentations about famous African-Americans during Black History month. They create Excel pie charts showing favorite ice cream flavors of their classmates. They use the digital camera to help them create their own three-part cards of the geometric solids. They chart their own progress in memorizing their addition facts. We create newscast simulations about taking care of the environment. We produce a clay-mation movie about the Amazon rainforest and donate proceeds from the sales of the movies to GreenPeace. The children often propel my own technological progress with their enthusiasm and creativity.

We do a great disservice to our children if we release them into "life after Montessori" ill-prepared for modern educational expectations. If used correctly, with forethought and respect to the Montessori philosophy, technology advances and complements the experiences we make available to our children.

What purpose would education serve in our days unless it helped humans to a knowledge of the environment to which they have to adapt themselves? -Maria Montessori (1989, p. 11)

Reference

Montessori, M. (1989). The formation of man. London: Clio.

ELIZABETH ROSS HUBBELL teaches an early elementary class at the Montessori School of Denver, CO.