Blog Post #1

I believe computers play a hugely important role in a classroom. Not only do they make the teacher's job easier, but also the students'. Computers can make tasks like taking attendance, reporting grades, and researching a topic very easy for the teacher, and allows them to allot more time for actually teaching their daily lesson. The stresses of lesson preparation are also largely cut down by having online resources and programs available at the teacher's fingertips. In the case of students, computers can help satisfy specific student needs in the classroom and also promote engagement in the classroom activity or lesson. Certain apps or social networks like blogs or podcasts can be used as learning tools, while others like Microsoft's Photo Story or Museum Box can help with creating attention-grabbing presentations to share with the classroom. When it comes to concerns about technology in the classroom, like how a school would finance technology for each student in each classroom, or how to manage time and experiences with technology in the classroom in an efficient way, I do understand where hardships can arise. Money is tight in the education system, and a lot of the times school boards have a strict hold on how classrooms are run in their district's schools. I believe that in order to boost the efficiency of classrooms in the US, teachers, higher-ups, and also parents need to somehow reach an agreement on the benefits of technology in the classroom in order to give students the education they deserve in this day and age.

I do believe that ISTE Standards are created with the best intentions with student's and teacher's in mind. They provide detailed outlines of what important skills teachers should present and teach to their students in order to create well-rounded, technologically efficient students in the classroom. One standard I see as positive is, "Facilitate and Inspire Student Creativity" to "Facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments." Allowing students to be innovative in their thinking and problem solving, and connecting lessons to real-world issues is hugely important in creating a student that is not only attentive to the world and its problems around them, but also how to go about solving those problems in an efficient way. However, I do believe that sometimes these standards can make teacher's feel like they are trapped in a box, or not allowed to go about things a different, possibly more efficient or creative way in order to instruct their students to their best ability. I've already somewhat felt this pressure of meeting certain standards in a lesson when teaching middle schoolers last semester, and the constant thought of having to meet those specific standards before the lesson was over intimidated me, and caused me to sometimes lose the flow of my lesson. An example of this could be the standard, "Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments." A standard like this does have some helpful application, but requiring teachers to "customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles," can easily become overwhelming for the teacher, and also cause problems having to integrate multiple ways of completing activities into a lesson plan. Even though it is important to address that every student has a different way of learning in a classroom, asking teachers to tailer their lessons to dozens of learning styles in their classroom is a lot.

I do believe that digital native is an appropriate term for todays youth. Those of us who are considered digital natives all grew up in the time of technology, most not being able to remember a time where technology didn't have a constant presence in everyday life. I do believe that there can be a large separation in how digital natives and digital immigrants use technology, depending on how comfortably they use in the workplace or regular activities. Most teachers who grew up and went through all of their schooling without technology have a hard time adapting to more advanced used of technology in the classroom other than projectors or computers, like using apps to take polls about history questions or programs that create models in mathematics. I think having teachers like this all throughout my schooling has really impacted my viewpoint on teaching and what a classroom should be like. In my head, I am ingrained with the thoughts that problems should be worked out on the board, tests should be taken with pencil and paper, and projects should have strict guidelines. But, growing up in the age of technology, I know that things could be done so much more efficiently and more beneficial to the student, like using a smart-board to allow students to draw on computer generated graphs or tables for more accuracy and understanding, or allowing students to submit anonymous polls about a question in order to promote student participation and give the teacher a way of seeing where their students stand with certain information in a lesson, and giving students more freedom to be creative when doing projects in order to increase excitement about certain topics. Even though the old way of doing things in the classroom could come across as easier, it is definitely not a more efficient way to promote learning and discussion in a classroom.