Blog Journal 1

I think each teacher has different reasons for motivating them to use technology in the classroom. For instance, I believe teachers would use technology to make things like grading easier (e.g., teachers can enter all the grades directly into the online gradebook that students can also view like Canvas, rather than entering them on paper and then transitioning to the online system at the end of the semester). I also think teachers would be influenced to use technology to help reward their students for getting answers correct and to reinforce good behavior that teachers want to see more of. When observing a class at Sabal Palms Elementary School, the teacher had a home page of all the students and if a student did something good, she would award them points on the program shown through the projector and the students would get very excited!

            

Being a continual learner is very important to me and would be important to me as an educator. This standard about constantly learning new teaching pedagogies and strategies is important for the best learning for the students. While I believe it is important for teachers to stay up to date with the literature and teaching strategies, I also believe it is important for teachers to learn from their students to allow for an open learning environment, especially for K-12 because that’s when you learn some of the most important stepping stones for future education.

I agree with the label, “digital native,” because that means the natives are fluent in the language of technology and are able to use these technologies very easily. I have seen some differences in how my teachers use technology from how I do, however it’s in small details like how to use the clicker and laser pointer during a lecture and how to set up the projector and monitors. Although there are some differences, they have not played a major part in my learning experience. I do think the opening statement of the article on digital natives is an accurate representation of today’s education system, “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our education system was designed to teach.” As a future educator, I think the world of technology will develop and change even more, so I will need to be prepared to constantly learn new technology to stay up to date with my students.

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