Blog Post #1

Considering the era we live in, technology can be viewed as crucial in the classroom for both teachers and students for a variety of reasons. Starting with teachers, technology can make teaching both easier and more impactful overall. This is because a lot of the more menial tasks a teacher may have to take care of (recording/calculating grades, taking attendance, etc.) can be done much more easily with technology which saves both time and energy. Additionally, the teacher can use technology to provide visual aid such as pictures and video that otherwise may have been harder for them to provide. This makes explanation easier and helps the teacher get through the curriculum more effectively. In terms of the student, the benefits are somewhat connected because they are the ones who will truly gain from the teacher's ability to do their job more effectively. Additionally, they will be able to research things more efficiently and will also be able to use programs and visual aids themselves to aid their own education. Even seemingly simple things like Microsoft Office eliminate issues such as sloppy presentations, illegible handwriting, or unnecessary hours being spent on putting projects together (whether it be an essay or a presentation or really anything else). The synthesis can be seen in how these benefits help both the teacher and student, even if a certain aspect clearly affects one more directly.

Overall, I find the ISTE standards fair and encouraging because it sets a bar for both teachers and students. One that particularly gladdens my heart would be the standard for teachers that emphasizes inspiring student creativity because that is something so crucial to a child that can often be overlooked, especially in terms of self-expression. Not all students are the same, so they should have their creativity and differences encouraged rather than stifled. One that seems out of my skillset would be designing and developing digital age experiences and assessments due to my own personal lack of technological knowledge (for now). As an individual, I tend to use pen and paper whenever possible, so I feel that it would be difficult to center a curriculum around technology successfully, despite how beneficial it would be.

I would agree with the label "digital native" to an extent. In other words, I find the term "today's youth" to be rather broad when thinking about digital literacy. This is because I was born before Google and when Dial-Up was still a thing, but someone merely a few years younger than me cannot relate. So much change has happened in the past decade that it is hard to compare me to someone seemingly in the same generation (this also applies to the differences between myself and people only a few years older than me). To be a digital native means to have grown up familiar with the Internet and modern technology, which is something I do feel applies to youths. I feel that we are more likely to understand it quickly because we don't know life without it like digital immigrants do. The differences between natives and immigrants tend to lie most heavily in efficiency rather than competency. In other words, immigrants are more than able to learn how to use digital tools, but they tend to be more awkward or clumsy, or they use methods that take longer than necessary (right-click and copy-paste rather than control+C, just to give an example). I don't see that as terribly impactful on my learning experience except when a teacher is particularly resistant to technology which has hindered my ability to gain experience. I anticipate a similar proportional difference between myself and my students because so much more will probably have been developed that I will be an immigrant to, and they will also have a much harder time grasping a time without this technology.