One of my graduate classes is about using technology in the classroom. One of our assignments is writing eJournals, where we are given prompts and required to write a reflection in response. Our first prompt asked us to consider technology in our own lives. “How has technology been used in your past experiences as a student or teacher? Did you find it effective? Reflect upon any field experience observations. Mention new website resources you have found. What did you learn from your fellow participants?” Here is my response:
Technology has been a part of my life as a student as long as I can remember. Looking back, I realize that I was incredibly lucky to go to an elementary school where we had access to a computer lab. I recall around second grade we used Apple computers to make LEGOs move; I don’t remember what exactly this was called, but it clearly formed a lasting impression. From elementary school onward, we were given experience with word processing; most times, technology was used for special projects and presentations. We gained a lot of experience with PowerPoint. In high school, my classes exposed me to additional software that I might not have experienced otherwise. Yearbook and newspaper provided experience with Adobe PageMaker and Photoshop, which greatly influenced who I became in college.
As a college student, I used the internet more for research. Online databases of scholarly articles such as JSTOR definitely made my life easier. The value of email presented itself as well, since I always emailed my papers to my Mom or a friend to have them proofread. My prior experience with Adobe led me to use it outside of publications by creating stellar handouts for presentations. As I was wrapping up my undergraduate study, more and more teachers were moving toward online submissions for papers and utilizing Blackboard for course materials. One of my favorite English professors sent our drafts and final papers back to us with comments and corrections tracked in Microsoft Word. Thumb drives were also one of the greatest inventions to come out during my college career, and I’ve gone from having one that I held my current papers and projects to several dedicated to different fields.
Since graduation, I’ve become the editor for friends’ papers, and we often use Google Docs to share things. While Google Docs provides access to word processing, spreadsheets and presentations among other document types, it pales in comparison to the innovations Google continues to provide. The advent of Google Wave could change the way people share and discuss documents, but it’s something that may take awhile to catch on.
My teaching experience is limited to substitute teaching, but I have seen technology used in various classroom settings. In some cases, students are using older computers to master the basic computer applications such as Microsoft Office. In another instance, I had the opportunity to substitute for a yearbook class, and these students had access to several state-of-the-art desktop computers as well as a cart of laptops. Many of them had their own high-quality point-and-shoot digital cameras, and they also had access to the school’s higher quality DSLR cameras. This same school district has several laptop carts shared by department. I’ve seen students use laptops for PowerPoint presentations in their social studies and science courses and use educational sites to reinforce skills while their regular teacher is out sick. In some cases, the students use the time with laptops productively; however, I’ve run across numerous students who use the time to access Flash games or dedicate most of their time to finding the perfect song for the background of their presentation. Several of the school districts with whom I’ve substituted use the website StudyIsland.com to reinforce and test student skills; I will be interested to discuss using sites like this when I complete my field experience observations.
Hm, I wonder who you’re referring to when writing about editing friend’s papers…