Blog Post #1

By 4pm today, I had read several articles for class, communicated with teachers, and researched for my thesis. All of this was done on a computer. It was a given that these things would be done with a computer, and I never considered another scenario in which I would complete these tasks. Technology is a given in many aspects of life today. Articles and assignments are posted online via class websites, I communicate with my teachers primarily through email, and I have near-endless sources with which to write papers. I'm lucky enough to be technologically literare, but it took learning. My teachers gave me projects to be completed with "online scavenger hunts." As a future professor, I know the importance of technology and how it can help or hinder students. Web 2.0 allows for greater and more accessible peer feedback, but it also opens the doors to less credible resources like Wikipedia. I would have liked more discussion on this in the chapter, but I assume that will be covered in later chapters.

I'm glad they specify critical thinking as a standard for students to learn, because finding can be difficult if you don't know how to think critically, but can be surprisingly easy if one has those skills. For example, while looking at a wikipedia page, it is important to recognize that the article itself isn't scholarly, but the sources at the bottom of the article may offer good bits of information for a person looking for credible sources. I feel a little uncomfortable with the teaching standards, specifically the idea of making one project that brings together multiple ways of learning. As the book said, people learn in a variety of ways, and having something for everyone seems complicated and difficult. 

I don't have a problem with the term "digital native," although I think it's important to note that I live a privileged life wherein technology has been available to me my entire life, and that is certainly not true of all members of my generation. The issue I have with this term comes more from how teachers interpret it. In the eyes of some teachers, my ability to use technology gets read as an assumed owner of technology. For example, one of my teachers (a digital immigrant) is requiring the purchase of ExamSoft, which will allow me to view my test and quiz scores immediately after finishing a test and make grading easier for my professor, who is teaching a 200 person class. The problem is, the program is to be used on laptops in class. I own a laptop, but it is old, crashes a lot, and doesn't connect to wifi reliably. So while she is trying to integrate technology to help all, my ability to take tests is actually being hindered. I hope that when I am in her position, I don't make similar mistakes of assuming technology is available to all of my students without first consulting. I imagine that the technology they use will cover much more of their life than current technology covers mine, so I will need to learn how it affects them, and also how accessible the new tools really are.