Blog #1

            In a world of quickly advancing technology, it is important for educators to learn and implement basic technology education within the classroom. Teachers often find that basic technologies such as the internet, classroom displays, projectors, and mobile devices to be very intriguing and motivating to students. A bored student, is an uninterested student. This leads to behavioral issues and an overall decline in grades. By providing a combination of various learning and cognitive styles with technology to reinforce learning, teachers are providing a better environment for educating. Conclusively, enhanced classroom technologies help aid educators in teaching and help to provide students with a more well rounded education in adversity, critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, and competency.

             The demand for student educations to now address a broader skill set that includes technology literacy, has caused the creation of the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) implemented by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).  Most of these standards are included in the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, the Common Core Standards Initiative, and the Teacher Preparation Accreditation. Some of these standards for students include students demonstration of creative thinking, collaborative work communication, research fluency, critical thinking skills, ethical behavior, and understanding of technological concepts. These standards also help educators to inspire student learning and creativity, develop enhanced digitalized assessments, demonstrate technology fluency, address diverse needs of all learners, and overall exhibit leadership for their students. The standard that means the most to me is instilling creativity in the classroom and inspiring student learning. More than ever, I have seen a lack of creativity and freedom in school curriculums. This is extremely detrimental to students educational careers because it makes them uninterested and bored. Rarely does one hear a student from a secondary education institution claiming they enjoy school. Between Kindergarten and twelfth grade there is a huge gap in inspiring topics and creativity within classrooms. You walk into a first grade class and you run into a bunch of children who are natural born artists and scientists. They ask deep meaningful questions such as "why is the sky blue", "why do I have five fingers?", "how old is the Earth?". Often, young students are seen drawing all over the place with whatever tools they can find. Conversely, you walk into a twelfth grade classroom and you see a bunch of students who have completely become uninterested in education. Something seriously wrong is happening between K-12 and I believe it has something to do with the lack of creativity and inspiration in ascending grades' classrooms. Demonstrating technological fluency holds to be one of the weaker standards for myself, because I know very little of current classroom technologies.

             I agree that the terms "digital native"and "digital immigrant" are fine definitions for todays students and teachers. To be digitally native is to be brought up among the digital age- this holds true for the majority of American students. Growing up before the widespread of technology, I believe it is also appropriate for most teachers to be labeled as "digital immigrants".Throughout my educational career I have seen a few difficulties in the gap between technological ages, but not as many as you'd expect. People among my generation are far more versed in the realm of smartphones and other technologies used for entertainment- not necessarily school technologies. We know very little of technologies used in the classroom such as smart boards and projectors. These are often brought to classrooms and taught to the teachers individually without student participation. My only complaint is substitute teachers not knowing how to correctly operate machinery. Otherwise, I haven't seen much of a gap between generations in terms of technologies in the classroom. Conversely, in the future, as a teacher, I may have a harder time adapting to new technologies seeing that the generations below me are already more well-rounded as technologically advanced individuals.