Through the course of this quarter, I've learned the importance of education not only in book smarts, but also in what I will refer to hereon as "tech smarts".
Although my generation has grown up with the internet, search engines, social networks, and constant digital communication, in comparison to a lot of people my age, I have never really been comfortable claiming myself as technologically efficient. Being a PC user, I'd walk into a Macintosh lab and freak out at the loss of my right click. I'd get terribly confused if I couldn't get attachments to work on emails, and nearly had a heart attack when my laptop crashed as I had no idea what the first steps were to deal with it calmly. Our classroom mantra "don't freak out" was not something I picked up right away.
However through the time I spent in this course (Instructional Technology 442) in my senior year of college, I've explored technologies, created a blog, a film, a presentation kiosk, and even explored technologies on my own.
I finally understand that technology is not something I need to go through to complete assignments for myself, but useful tools I can utilize in a classroom. I always thought of technology training as an extra skill that children would be able to work on in weekly or bi-monthly computer lab sessions. However, I know now that they can be an everyday asset to classroom instruction. I realized there are certain applications that will help me grade, help students (and me) present information, brainstorm, research, and explore their own levels of creativity. With the realization that there is a high possibility that children of future generations will be more comfortable calling themselves tech-savvy than I was, I know how important it is to keep up with them. I am so excited to use the tools I've learned in this course to extend my knowledge as well as my students' in the future.
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