Week 3: Journal Entry….Me and my relationship with Technology

PROMPT:  Take a few moments to reflect on your usage of technology. Does technology come easy to you or does technology seem to thwart your every move? When you design your class, how do you decide which technology tools to use? Reflect on your experience as a student during this pilot, your experience in the workshop sessions and using the tools that we have been practicing with.  How is your experience influencing your thoughts/plans about your own instruction? 

Hi.  My name is Meaghan.  And I’m an Apple junky.  I’ve been accused of being my own Apple store, being a personal Genius Bar for family and friends, and have way way way too much Apple technology.  I’ve been this way forever.  Always wanting new tech to play with.

Does this answer the question?  

I LOVE TECHNOLOGY.

But I’ve also learned over the years that not everyone is as tech savvy as I am, nor do they all want to play in some of the crazy sandboxes I do.  So over time, I’ve had to learn how to curb my enthusiasm and “edit” my technology use in the classroom.  Which has been a lesson….but is one that I fully embrace and respect.  It also makes me better at teaching with technology because when I’m ready to implement something in the classroom I’ve put it through it’s paces a bit…thrown the spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks, so to speak.  I’m not one to use my classroom as a testing ground for technology unless it’s for a reason. 

So no, it doesn’t thwart my every move.

In fact, I am teaching students to be a part of an industry where technology is a driving force in how their work is delivered.  So I’ve got to sort of be aware of new trends in technology and delivery or I’m sort of not doing my job.  I have to embrace it…the good the bad and the ugly of it.

When it comes to my classroom and deciding what tech to use it sort of depends on the class, the group of students, and what I’m hoping to get from using it.  For instance, it my Media Communications class, I will often use it as a gauge for how well my students are grasping concepts while making that assessment fun and accessible.  But in my mobile storytelling class, I’m using it as a literal tool for capturing and delivering content.  And the technology LOOKS different.  In Media Comm it could be a Socrative assessment where as in the Mobile Storytelling class it could be a gimbal and Bluetooth mic setup that allow for capturing sound and video in different compelling ways.

I’ll be honest, I’ve had a rough go in this pilot with the remote workshops.  I’m finding it hard to hear things sometimes and I’m feeling detached from what’s happening because of the position I’m in as a remote attendee.  It’s been eye opening from a “what do I need to do differently for my students” standpoint…but it’s also terrifying because the technology needs to work with me and not against me for this to really be successful…and what this pilot has proven to me is that we don’t really have all the tech we need to make this a seamless process/experience for students.  We have a ways to go in fact.  I also have been so-so on my interactions with the canvas course page.  I love the landing page, but navigating beyond it is clunky and not enjoyable.  I have found myself going in circles.  So while I want to look all cool and glitzy like this course landing page, I’m going to stick with my tried and true way of building things…as I think it’s more obvious to students how to navigate things.  I also really miss a physical book.  I may just order the books this week and forego looking at them on kindle.  I cannot read them the way I want in a kindle format.  I’ve always been a physical book person for enjoyment reading…and learning from an e-book is literally like a root canal for me.  I do not enjoy it.  At all.  So I will never be using one for my students.  If they want to access things via Kindle because that’s how they want to, that’s cool by me.  But I’m always going to lean on the side of physical copy because I cannot stand reading off a screen (I stare at one too much on any given day), and really don’t love annotating like it’s a paper I’m grading with my Apple Pencil.  So there ya go.  That’s my take on the pilot tech interactions and how it’s influencing my thoughts on tech in my classrooms.  How’s that for blunt and honest?  😂