Digital Blog Post A - Chapter 1

There are many concepts that I found intriguing throughout this chapter. First of all, being a 21st century teacher is pretty interesting just in itself. You have to adapt to so much different technology and use it in the classroom while teaching your students to use certain aspects of it. It has such a huge role in the classroom now a days that it is almost impossible to avoid adapting to the technological age we are in.  84% and 73% of teachers said a personal computer and interactive white board, respectively, were  "must haves" for teaching. (Maloy, et al, 2013, p. 12) Growing up  in classrooms that had these things since Kindergarten, I can't help but agree and say that they are rather necessary in one of today's classrooms. When I am a teacher I plan to use these pretty frequently as a tool for students to learn.

Furthermore, I thought the chapter on social media (Maloy, et al, 2013, p. 16) was interesting because I wasn't really aware of how much social media could be used for learning. In high school, many of our teachers tried to stay away from social media because of how it can sometimes be difficult to keep professional and personal life separate on sites like Facebook. However, I saw that they were in fact okay to use as a learning tool. Of course, as a teacher you have to be careful to not mix personal and professional social media aspects but as long as you are using them responsibly, they can be very helpful while teaching to stay in contact with colleagues and students, and to have an open forum for discussion outside of the physical classroom. One of the things that I will obviously do as a teacher, is make sure I have separate accounts for school and my outside life.

On the other hand, although technology has so many wonderful benefits, it was a little troubling to see just how much we rely on it. The 8 to 18 year olds today are part of the iGeneration. They average 10 hours and 45 minutes per day of media time.(Maloy, et al, 2013, p. 3) I personally don't think we should be using technology quite to this extent. Of course it is a great learning tool, but we also have to learn how to function without Google to ask every little question to or without a smart phone glued to our hands. Being 18 myself, its almost embarrassing to think that we are using technology that much, instead of doing things outside of electronics. Today, its easier for most people have a conversation over text message, than it is for them to have a conversation face to face. I go to Canada almost every summer, where we have to turn off our phones and electronics to avoid the extra roaming charges. During these few  days, you have so much more time to learn things about yourself and other people or go outside and play a game of soccer, instead of just surfing the internet 24-7.

Photo Credits to Soren Rasmussen

All in all, getting the first glimpse of being a teacher in the 21st century in this chapter was fascinating. There is so much that technology allows us to do and so many different things we can do with it. However, I believe that sometimes we have to know when to know when its too much and when to put it down for a while.

Resources:

Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.