Email... google... texting... writing papers... facebook... research...these are things I do on a regular basis and they all involve digital literacies.It is really surprising to take a step back an see how much time I spend on my computer or phone. Even just today, a day that I really haven't spend that much time on my computer, I have been on her thus far probably about two hours. This morning I got online to print off some notes for a test today...and while I was at it I checked Canvas for a message from one of my students, and also distracted myself looking at other emails. Then later today I got online to actually work on this blogpost...but got sidetracked into researching how to manage hair in places that are humid...and that lead to researching the best ways to take care of and style curly hair. Getting on here yet again still later today, I got distracted with facebook, looking up my best friend from my K-3 school years. Now I am writing this blogpost.
Then a suprising amount of time is spent texting people...even though I don't really consider myself to be a super big texter I have still sent 17 text messages just today.
I never would have thought, growing up, that I would ever spend this much time using my phone or my computer. My laptop was out of commission for a little while not too long ago, and boy did I learn how much I really rely on my computer!! Luckily there is a USU computer lab that I can get to within about five minutes of leaving my apartment.
In an age where students are growing up using, at least to some extent, phones and computers and other technological things almost as soon as they can talk, being familiar with technology and incorporating it into my classroom will be to use something right up their alley. They grow up playing computer games, so why not show them some computer games that involve math? They use computers to look things up and learn about them, so why not also use a computer to help them learn math? There are so many online tools that I am becoming aware of and learning how to use that will be so beneficial in terms of teaching. Some of these are GeoGebra, Geometer's Sketchpad, Wolfram Alpha, heck--I, myself, have even made a website dedicated to interesting problems in probabiliity! In all honesty, I don't know that I'll be able to incorporate as much technology into my teaching as other teachers might, just because I am less comfortable with it, but the more I am learning, the more I become comfortable with, and the broader the spectrum of technologies to use in my teaching.
Wow! You are a digital literacy user. I like the ways in which you have considered that your teaching will align better with a digital generation. The choices of digital texts that you have included as well as your critical thinking about how to improve student use and critical consumption of these texts will have a tremendous impact on your students’ learning. Additionally, the ideas you have for teaching them how to use these technologies better will have a profound effect on their future learning.
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