Blog 2: With every new year, comes new discoveries...and technology

There was an age of discovery. There was an age of industry. Now we're still in the midst of the age of technology. Every year we are still discovering new aspects of computers and the internet, and how we can integrate technology into real life. But sometimes, some individuals get left out of the rebvolution due to disabilities or societal seclusion. Though, the advancements of technology hope to erase that in the coming years. Enter WordQ, a software that works with any word processor. It allows individuals the access in correcting their speech as well as their writing skills with on site help and internet resources in improving writing skills. In 1995, word processing was a new venture, and quite rudimentary at best. Now, it has evolved into the standard in how we compose and distribute letters. With the creation of WordQ, the gap between disabled individuals and the general public has decreased and will hopefully allow for further advancement for individuals with disabilities.

I must say, blogging is still quite a mystery for me. I have quite a fascination with it. It's a great outlet to allow for personal reflection and hopefully allow input from the greater public. I am still trying to figure out how blogging is useful for educators. If only I could possibly find an educator's blog or an article about blogging in education. Perhaps then this mystery will be solved. And it's quite dramatic of me to call it a "mystery", but it truly is. I equate blogging to journaling or writing in a diary. To have one's personal thoughts portrayed to the whole world via Internet...it's sort of frightening.

For my classmates, let us ponder this: where will we be as far as technology when we become educators? I think I may have wrote about this in my previous blog, but the more we delve into the topics about education and technology, more questions form. Will we be replaced? Can we be replaced? If society becomes a homogenous society whose only relationship is between man and computer, maybe. But I think this is a false reality. Man requires that attention from compadres. Without it, what is life?

Blog 1: The new age of digital technology

It seems quite funny that I would be blogging on a subject that I'm currently living in. As I was reading Chapter 1, I reflected on the first time my family got a PC. It was so new, so foreign. I think it crashed the first day we had it. And now here we are, 2008, and the world has become a digital epicenter of computers and technology has been interfaced into cars and phones. Wow. Such a long way. That's one of the topics that marveled me in Chapter one, the history of the computer. It seems funny how basic a PC was back in the 80s and how it has literally evolved into a machine that could basically type what you are saying. What is even more fascinating is how technology is merging with education. I remember reading about movies like 2001 A Space Odyssey and remember how they imagined how the future would operate. They had this particular scene in which a classroom was digitized and all students sat in front of a computer, listening to the Professor. Now, it's past 2001, and we have the ARCS system to help teachers educate the new digital age. The ARCS system is rather interesting. It centers in on the multiple intelligences a child of the digital age might have (or is currently developing) and discovers ways of using them to help the child reach their education potential. The one crucial factor that I think many educators need to grasp on with this ARCS model is the Attention factor. This day and age, digital children have extremely short attention spans. We as educators need to capture their attention very quickly with interesting presentations and creative executions. We cannot lax in this category, not at all. It's also interesting to note about how the ARCS model emphasizes in the Challenge/Confidence portion that the "challenge should properly match student's abilities". I find that rather fascinating because many challenges either reach the two extremes of challenges. Some students find a challenge rather boring, while others find it too difficult. How do we as educators find that nice medium between the two and ensure success for all? Can technology help us ensure the success of the ARCS model? Time will tell. My hope is that technology will be an AIDE and serve as a REPLACEMENT in Education. While I do enjoy the scenes in 2001 A Space Odyssey, it made me rather scared of believing the setting to be a reality. Can we as teachers function as just observers and let technology become us? I hope not.

Interesting enough, some new skills that I've learned since our last class is blogging. Blogging is increasingly becoming a new skill in the new digital age. Many use it as a form of entertainment, a favorite tool for celebrity gossipers. However, I am seeing a connection that can be drawn between blogging and education. Teachers could use blogs as a way of reflecting. First year teachers may find some use in this objective due to the fact they could reflect on how they are adjusting to the job and what they have found useful to their success. On the flip side, an experienced teacher could use it as a way to share their experiences as well as what works for them year after year.

A question I would like to pose to the class is how we as future educators could be considered different to our predecessors. We are children that grew up in the digital age, but yet we are not considered digital children because we were born before the digital boom? Or are we digital children? I think we have an edge over our predecessors because we are familiar with digital technology. We know how to use a computer. And I think we will succeed ever further because we want to learn how to coexist with digital technology. Who knows?

Blog 0: A new beginning

So thus begins my venture into the cyberspace of blogging. To be quite honest, I never imagined myself ever creating a blog, but if what Pat said is true, Education is making leaps and bounds if it has truly been integrating with blog-sphere. As mentioned before, this is my first venture into what I consider higher technological knowledge. I mean, I had always known how to surf the web, use a word processor, create a powerpoint, or even construct a spreadsheet. But to be honest, some of the course objectives in this course are material that I have never heard of in my life nor heard anyone discuss before. It shall be interesting.
In this class, I really do hope to learn about the bridging between education and technology. When I was in middle and high school, the technology that teachers had at their disposable was always very interesting to me. Their ability to use computer software a software for grading was fascinating, and the fact that they could change the weights of certain assignments on a dime was a technological marvel...in my opinion. I really want to learn the basic and advanced knowledge of how I can use technology in my class to ensure an increase in productivity as well as an overall improvement in classroom management.
From the learning styles survey, what I learned was not incredibly surprising. On the survey, I scored a high score in the active portion, reflecting a fact I already knew. To be sitting in a lecture can be tedious for me, especially if I'm not participating. What surprised me was the balance I had in visual/verbal and sequential/global areas. I mean, I have dealt in classes that had teetered in all four of those areas, but I seem to have responded more to the ones dealing in visual and global areas, not the opposite. To see that the survey concluded that I had a balance of all four intrigued me and made me really think about the overall approach that I use for my learning style. I found the survey to be quite interesting, and hope that we do more of those kind of surveys in the future.