Blog Journal #2 🥳

Hi again!

    I took a computer class once upon a time in elementary school where we all learned how to type and use various MS apps. I have been familiar with Word for about 10 years now. I have written many essays requiring tables and other special formatting styles, so I am also familiar with those. Personally, though, I would rather use GoogleDocs. There are multiple reasons for this, one being the compatibility in using it to share documents with anyone and work on the same content. Another is the fact that Google Drive allows me to create files and organize all my documents efficiently. Overall, it just seems to fit better for me!

    Out of all the ISTE standards I want to focus on the Leader. This standard discusses teacher advocacy for technology in their classrooms and for their students in K-12 settings. The specific phrasing that I appreciated was the teacher's role in supporting "student empowerment and success" through this advocacy. That is an important part of teaching that I find myself needing a reminder of sometimes; we want our students to not need us. For younger students, advocacy is much more important as they can not speak for themselves in the setting which is required to get them what they need. However, in middle and high school, teachers should want their kids to be able to advocate more for themselves (with assistance to a certain extent) and be independent in their technological and general experiences.

    Ironically, I was just talking about the idea of digital nativism with my sister today, though we didn't know that was what it was during the conversation. We were talking about a game that she played when she was younger that I didn't have access to at the same age. Another topic was that my youngest sister has never had a landline phone in the house, which is something very odd to me as I grew up with one. I think the label is accurate, but I don't entirely think the limitations it puts on an individual are beneficial to the world. The idea of this title, based upon how your age dictates your interactions with technology, can be a detriment to both digital immigrants and natives. In my experience, older teachers have been able to work with technology similar to younger ones, but I have also not encountered teachers younger than their thirties until college. Technology provides the same challenges to everyone - it's just a matter of problem-solving and critical thinking skills. I have a feeling that with new technology, the changes will be a lot more major. I will one day become a digital immigrant to my students and their pop culture. It tends to cyclical in many ways.