As the years continue to pass us by, we begin to age and
slowly lose touch with our senses. Comparatively, over the years technology
only becomes more and more advanced. I can remember when the thought of using a
computer to type up my assignments, or to look up information for papers seemed
foreign to me. I can honestly say that I wasn’t sure if I would ever be using
something like Google Docs, spreadsheets, or even blogs. With that being said,
I was honestly a bit stressed about this particular activity. It required me to
not only read about different technologies, but to prove that I could utilize
them myself. I enjoyed that my group members were enthusiastic about the
assignment and made efforts to get the spreadsheet started. Each member of the
group took responsibility for their own work. I thought that by conducting an
assignment where each member of the group had no choice but to pull their own
weight was much less stressful than the stereotypical “group project”.
I never realized how many different technologies were
available as learner aides within my content area. Not only did interactivity
three force me to emerge myself in an unfamiliar technology, but it also opened
my eyes to many new technologies that were found by my group members. I had heard
of some of these different technologies that they mentioned before, but I
seemed to forget about most of them over the years. Now I will have something
tangible to remind me of the different methods I can use to teach my future
students. This module will also be helpful in my READ 411 and CURR 314 courses.
I will be able to use it as a reference to help make new and interesting lesson
plans for these courses.
So many things in
life go unnoticed or unappreciated. I feel like technology is one of those
things, especially in reference to education. I am saying this however only
from my perspective on technology in education. I feel that I, and potentially
some of my peers that grew up in the same generation as me, take for granted
not only what technology has provided me with, but also its struggle into the
classroom. I never sat down and honestly tried to place myself into the shoes
of a teacher from say 1824. What would it have been like? How would I have run
my classroom? How would I keep my students interested and on point? How would I
“spice up” the classroom flow? After watching the visual representation of the
history of technology in our education system, I noticed the great impact that
not only television has had in our classroom, but also the educational media
that it is coupled with. Still today we have TV shows on PBS or daytime shows
on Nickelodeon and the Disney channel that foster critical thinking and
intuitiveness. I have done a great deal of babysitting throughout my teenage
years where these channels were the only ones that parents would let their children
watch. This is in addition to my exposure to the technology first hand as a
child as well. I can still sing in my head the color song in association with
normal objects that the purple Dinosaur Barney used to illustrate on my own
television screen. His fun and carefree nature and intelligent demeanor made
learning not seem like such a drag to me. Watching these fun characters on TV
take control of their own learning and love doing it, made me want to emulate
them. I feel like this is and was probably the case for most students in
America as the television and educational media began to take a rise in the
classroom. Without the television, teaching and instructing would have been
hindered. We would still be stuck in the old ways of rote teaching that so badly
needed to be metamorphosed and transformed into a shimmering crystalline
education that reflected and internalized the eclectic needs of the students.
The television added a new and undiscovered land to the world of education.
Something that the “Columbus’s” of our teaching system took charge of and used
to their advantage.
When
it comes to English education, the television not only taught students the
beauty of moving pictures, but the association of these pictures with words and
concepts, which helped to propel deeper thinking and understanding.
Additionally the television programming aspect of this technology provided
shows like Barney, Sesame Street and many other shows that promoted learning
new words and sentence structure. After reading the article “A Social History
of Media, Technology and schooling” by Vanessa Domine, I came to the conclusion
that another highly beneficial learning aide in terms of technology would have
to have been the creation of word processing. Without word processing, you
would not be reading the words on this blog as you see them. Instead, knowing
my track record, you would be reading a jumbled block of text with various
cross outs “never-minds” and not yet corrected typos. Word processing makes it
easier and faster to put thoughts into black and white. As Grace mentions in
regards to her mothers experience as a teacher, “She
thought that the cutting and pasting method was very powerful because it
allowed students to think conceptually rather than be confined to the
traditional linear format of storytelling like on a typewriter” (47). I
couldn’t agree with Grace’s mother more. This form of technology showed
students that it’s ok to make mistakes, but to learn from them. That thinking
doesn’t just end after you write something down; there is always time and room
to elaborate, make changes, and cut out what you want to say. Word processing
not only impacted the students that used it, but the schools as well. It made
it easier and quicker for teachers to grade assignments and create new lesson
plans. There is just something beautiful and relieving that the image of a
blank page that that doesn’t persecute you for mistake and re-thoughts. After
the drastic change from the linear typewriter, this program rendered thinking
and helped to implement in students the feeling that anything can be possible.
"Technology to the Rescue!"
Work Cited:
Domine, Vanessa. "A Social History of Media, Technology and Schooling."
The National Association for Media Literacy Education’s
Journal of Media Literacy Education 1 (2009): 42-52. JMLE. Web. 1 Feb.
2012..
Google Search:
"Technology and students in the classroom cartoons"
“Back when I was a young girl, if I
wanted to hang out with some of my girl friends I had to go knock on their door
and ask them to come outside” Whenever I think about technology and the changes
that it has made to our culture, I think about my Grandmothers words. The
generations have changed drastically since the time that my grandma was a young
adult, and she makes sure to persistently remind me of this generation gap
anytime I text or mention facebook affairs too often in front of her. Having
these conversations with my grandma, or even my parents at times, makes me
realize how reliant I am on technology; especially communication technology. I
just recently lost my cell phone for approximately five days and I felt like I
must have traveled to an unknown planet because of how lost and out of touch I
felt. After enduring these five seemingly long days, I can’t imagine not having
a phone at all. The three most influential technologies in my life presently
are my blackberry, social networks such as facebook, and my laptop.
In reference to learning new
information, the accessibility of these technologies has changed the way that I
process and look for information. The instant access to the Internet that my
blackberry or laptop gives me, makes it easy to look up anything and everything
that I would ever need to know at any given time. Because of this however, I
have become an impatient learner. I am less likely to want to read a textbook
in search of the answer to a biology or history question, when I can simple
type my question into a search engine. Because of the reliability that I now
have on technology I don’t find myself sitting in the library late at night
with my eyes blurring the lines of a textbook together to form an ink blot-like
figure. Instead I am constantly searching the web and typing notes on a
processor to study for my exams. There is a sort of authenticity that comes
with sitting down for a long night in low light, attacking a difficult subject
and drilling information into your mind. Because of this presence of
authenticity alone, we know that technology has changed the way that we learn
and think about learning.
In Olivia’s story, I felt myself
being able to relate my uses of technology to hers. Unlike Olivia however, I do
not feel as if I am exceptionally technology savvy. I am often to afraid to
cause some sort of inter-web explosion with my attempts to make my own websites
or download programs, leaving my computer useless. The young people in the
videos seemed to be unafraid of the technology, and they fully embraced the
opportunities that it provided them. I find myself often using facebook as a
way to interact with my peers and family that I may not see every day. I enjoy
staying updated on their lives and furthering my interpersonal relationships
with all of them. Upon watching these videos, I felt that I could relate to the
young people through the types of technology that they expressed were important
to them. I was surprised however to see the youngest girl (of approximately ten
years old) speaking about making websites and throwing herself into technology.
I sometimes feel that my ability to utilize everything that the Internet and
different technologies presents to me is limited. Seeing children as young as
the little girl at the end of the “Learning to Change, Changing to Learn”
video; navigating technology so freely, leads me to believe that as the decades
continue to pass us by, younger generations will be fully reliant on and
comfortable with every kind of technology. Technology has proven to be
important for learning purposes, and it is therefore imperative that we not
only make it accessible to our youth, but also additionally teach and promote
technology and its advantages in our future classrooms.
