The Impact of Technology

This week brought different technology concepts to the front of my mind. Those topics being: digital fluency, digital citizenship, my digital footprint, and net neutrality. Since these topics are all significant to the success of digital learning and leadership, I feel it necessary to include my findings regarding all three.

Digital Fluency:

*Computing is not about computers any more. It is about living. ~ Nicholas Negroponte, 1980

This quote hit home with me because computers and devices have become a way of life for most people. I believe the author is trying to convey the message that computers are no longer a novelty, but they are something we all need to be comfortable with in order to be a productive members of society. From banking, to school registration, to shopping, and managing a household: all facets of our lives are connected to technology in some way.

As far as educational and personal application goes, technology is a way of life for me. All my family photos and videos are digital and stored in the cloud. Additionally, I pay bills and handle banking transactions online. When it comes to Education and teaching, I create my lesson plans in a web-based program, so that I can access them anywhere. I share assignments with my students in Google Classroom and require them to submit most of them online. I also have a class set of Chromebooks, and we us them almost daily. Without the continual use of

technology in and educational setting, many students would not acquire the fluency needed for future successes.

It is surprising to me each year how little students know about utilizing technology, and that scares me considering the status of our technology-driven world. As an educator, I feel highly responsible for filling in the gaps in my students’ technology fluency, and I make every effort to get them up to speed. Many of the shortcomings I have observed led me to the master’s program in Digital Learning and Leadership. I feel that organizations, as a whole, from the top down will have to take on an innovative mindset in order for us to prepare our students to flourish in a 21st Century society.

In recent years, I have read several articles about the Internet of Things (IoT), and how it will change the way we work and play. According to Jacob Morgan, “Anything that can be connected, will be connected” (2016). This means that all devices will wireless capabilities will be intertwined, and many facets of our lives will be monitored electronically. Items we manually keep track of now like the number of eggs we have in the refrigerator or the temperature of our homes will all be digitally tracked. In the near future, the fictional home of the Jetsons we all admired as children will become a reality. This makes technology education and fluency a must for both

educators and students alike.

References

Morgan, J. (2016, August 23). A Simple Explanation of 'The Internet of Things'. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/#75aab8441d09

TED Talks. (2014, July 08). A 30-year history of the future | Nicholas Negroponte. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/5b5BDoddOLA

Digital Citizenship:

Net Neutrality:

Net neutrality matters to education because students need to have the freedom to dream and create without being restricted. Students learn best when they explore topics of interest and use the information to construct projects that showcase their learning. This new learning is vital to the advancement of our society since today’s K-12 students will be tomorrow’s innovators. Innovation requires trial, error, and application to bring an idea to fruition, and the Internet is the playground where all the experimentation must take place. Locking it down and restricting access inhibits progress and limits the real world connections that need to be experienced in order to create an idea that is truly useful to people around the globe.

In addition to the expanded opportunities for research and application an Open Internet policy provides, students are engaged in the highest level of learning from the Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid: create (Vanderbilt University, 2017). As teachers, we all strive to provide the opportunities for our students to engage in this type of learning, but at times it can be hard to accomplish with a paper and pencil lesson. Technology and the Internet bring advanced learning and access to any topic to classrooms everywhere, an advantage generations of the past were unable to experience. Along with learning at the highest possible level comes another benefit teachers strive to achieve in their classrooms: engagement. Students who have the liberties of choice and unlimited access for exploration will want to continue researching and will produce artifacts of higher quality at the end of the unit or lesson.

References

Vanderbilt University. (2017). Center for Teaching. Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

My Digital Footprint:

After searching my name online, I found that my digital footprint was minimal and most results were linked to my career and current graduate studies. My Boerne ISD website, school Twitter account, ePortfolio for Lamar, and a long-range-technology planning committee I served on were a few of my hits. The results were not surprising to me since I monitor my digital footprint on a regular basis, and I am not a very exciting person. I had all my fun before smart phones, Internet, etc. I’m sure that is for the best!

As far as digital profiles go, I have a Twitter account for school, a personal Facebook for family and friends, a LinkedIn account to keep my professional achievements up to date, and a Pinterest account for both personal and instructional ideas. If I were to score my comfort level with others viewing any/all of my digital activity, I think I would give myself a 3 for proficient. I settled on this number because I wrote something about my mother not letting me take ballet lessons in my learning manifesto, and it is posted in my ePortfolio. I didn’t say anything bad about my mother, but I mentioned that my parents couldn’t afford the lessons, so it might hurt her feelings. That was never my intent, but I used it to illustrate a point I was making about how students should have opportunities to try a variety of things until they find their strengths. I feel the example helped to personalize my learning manifesto, but I still worry she might be bothered by it. I know they did the best they could with the resources they had available.