Blog Post 1

As teachers, we must make sure that students leave school with mastery of the content and knowing the information that will be able to help them in the future.  Technology allows teachers to be more interactive in their presentation of materials, as well as more concise so it becomes a necessity to be technologically literate.  It also allows teachers to communicate with students and other teachers quicker and more effectively than traditional methods as technology continues to improve.  Students are influenced to use technology because it can solidify what they are learning in the classroom and helps develop critical thinking skills further than traditional methods.  It can better accommodate the different learning styles of students than a teacher trying to individualize traditional teaching methods.

In the ISTE standards, the one standard that stood out to me is the Learner for teachers.  Teachers have keep learning every day to adapt to the changing technological landscape and address changes to be able to teach their students about these changes.  I am always learning new things about the technology available to me and being able to learn more will aid me when I have to teach the changes to students and help them understand.  The standard outside my skillset is the Designer standard.  I believe I can create effective plans, but to utilize the technology to its most useful ability will be a challenge.  I may have grown up in the age of technology, but I still learned in very traditional methods for many classes and  that will lead to a challenge for me as a future educator.

Digital native is not necessarily the best label for today’s youth, but it is an accurate description of them.  Being a digital native means being raised around technology and being knowledgeable and able to adapt to its ever-changing environment.  I have more of a command of the technology than many of the teacher I have had in the past because I grew up around it and they had to learn and adapt in adulthood when it was just beginning (digital immigrants).  It leaves a little bit of gap in some technology and causes students to sometimes help the teachers use the technology and troubleshoot some of the issues they may not understand.  In the future, as a digital native, I believe that I will be more adapted to the changing technology landscape, but will sometimes come across as digital immigrant because I will not always be able to keep up with the evolving trends like my students will.