Week Two: Reflection #1: Technology is Not the Bane of a Teacher's Existence

“Children are naturally curious and open to learning, but…they need the support of adults in their lives who understand this.”-Laura McLaughlin Taddei & Stephanie Smith Budhai, Nurturing Young Innovators (2017)

The modern classroom is vastly different from the classrooms of yester-year. Our students are constantly engaged with their technology, all day long. I have students that use their laptops for notes; they use their phone to upload assignments onto Google Classroom. Simultaneously, these devices are the primary means of communication for their friends and them, since they use social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat, as well as text messaging, to maintain constant contact with their friends. They can even use Google to learn and easily look up a piece of information that they do not understand.

What all of this indicates is that it is vitally important for us as educators to learn about and utilize the technology that is a constant presence within the lives of our students. If we do not learn how to do this, then we will fail—not to be too dark and dreary—at effectively engaging them. Maloy, et al (2017) state: “Creating more interactive and inspiring learning experiences for students is today’s great educational challenge, made already more complex in classrooms with students from many backgrounds who possess different levels of interest in curriculum and divergent learning styles” (p. 4). Our students live in an age of constant distraction. They have so many options that are competing for their attention that its hard for us, their teachers, and education, as a whole, not to become lost in the noise.

Another thing about the students of today, the students that I teach on a daily basis, is that they all think they are digitally literature and know everything about technology. What they don’t realize is where their knowledge is lacking? To phrase what one of my colleagues said during a professional development meeting: “[The students] don’t know what they don’t know.” They do not realize what information they might be lacking, or where their digitally literacy falls shorts, and it’s our job as educators to bring them to where they need to be.  Burns (2018) states: “Thoughtful technology integration that places ‘tasks before apps’ should be a goal for all teachers designing learning experiences for their students” (p. 3). I like what Burns says here: In order to effectively engage our students, we should be designing educational learning experiences for them. Their distractions should be competing with our education, not the other way around.

Therefore, technology does not have to be the bane of a teacher’s existence, since if we effectively use “tasks before apps”  to effectively and impactfully engage our students—make excite in them this need to learn, then, technology can do no wrong; it can be a means of empowerment for our students.