First Week in a New Domain

Well, this is the first week back at University since Christmas holidays, so that means that I am starting a new term this week, full of new and exciting courses. Most of my courses are really interesting as they teach me new content about how to manage my classroom as a teacher and how my students' think. Perhaps one of my most interesting and engaging classes that I will have is "Using Information & Communication Technology in Education." During our first class, our professor went over the course syllabus, as most professors do at the beginning of a course. We were shown a website called, "Wordle," which allows people to create a picture containing a plethora of words that are related to a subject. You can type a list of words of any sorts and if you type the same word over again, it will simply increase the size of that exact word. I thought about what I would be able to use this sight for as a teacher and I realized that I would use it to create a Word Wall about a unit and important words that the students must know. It could also be used for different poetry exercises or grammar exercises.




Our professor showed us many different videos on YouTube about technology and the use of ICT in schools. One of my favorite videos that he showed the class was Taylor Mali doing slam poetry about what teachers make. I thought that this video really spoke to me because I feel that many parents as well as people in different professions do not treat teachers with respect and feel that their jobs are insignificant as they do not make as much money as other professions. This video really tells the truth that teachers do make a difference in the lives of others and that's why I want to be a teacher. I feel that this video really "sticks it" to those critics. If you haven't seen this video, I suggest that you check out it here.

We had a speaker named John Finch come to class and he discussed Literacy with ICT* Across the Curriculum. It is based on a continuum and teaches the students how to expand on the use of  technology when combined with Manitoba Curriculum. For example, students would use technology to find information about a given project. The next step would be to source the information as references. Another step would be to find how reliable the information really is by checking if it is recent information and who it is written by. I thought John used a very good example in portraying the importance of technology. He talked about how in earlier times, students would be given a project and would have to go to the library to find books about their subject. They would possibly find 10 books at the library about their subject. These days, students can look up their subject on their own device, whether it be a laptop, Ipad, Ipod, or Iphone, and find millions of sources about their subject. One can see that technology is a great and reliable source for this society, but I still have my doubts about it.

During my practicum, I witnessed a student using the popular application known as Snapchat. Now don't get me wrong, I think that Snapchat is a great app that can be used to communicate and send photos to friends or loved ones that are not around you. I use it all the time. But that's just it; this student was sending a Snap to his friend who was about 10 to 12 feet away from him. What happened to the days when people would walk over to their friends and start a conversation? How often do you go to a restaurant and see a couple or a group of friends sitting at a table and every one of them has their device four inches from their face? What ever happened to human interaction, face to face? I found during my practicum that students would type entries into Google incorrectly and would just let the computer correct the word for them. They were not learning how to spell the words correctly, they did not even care, the computer was doing it for them. Students would write written responses for the teacher and while I corrected them I found that a lot of them wrote, on paper, words that they would use in a text message. Such words would include, "like," "u," "wnt," (went) and "r."   I feel that students need to have a background of applicable knowledge before using some devices. Students should use technology as a tool to assist with learning, not to substitute their learning with a device that gives them the answers. I believe that technology and devices should be used as a tool, not as a shortcut. Technology can be helpful but I think that it can also be very harmful.