Author: teaganhunt (Page 3 of 3)

I found Jesse’s lecture today really eye-opening about the boundaries that educators need to set between their professional and personal life. It brought forward a couple questions as a future educator, regarding my personal social media presence as well as my digital footprint. Specifically, his presentation will make me rethink what I post on social media. Is this something that I am comfortable having public? Who else does this impact?

It is important to recognize that times have changed and many of our 21st century learners are growing up in a highly technological environment. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the typical in-class setting switched digital. As an educator working with this young generation, it is important to honour the resources and technology they are familiar with, and incorporate it into the classroom.

Jesse also emphasized the importance of using ONLY technology that you feel is necessary both in the classroom, and in your personal life. Parents, and others around you will often be quick to judge the technological platforms that you choose to use. Many parents may hold 20th century views of technology and will often feel negatively about incorporating it into the classroom. It is important that you, as the teacher, are using the technology in a meaningful way that is crucial to student learning. If you are incorporating it effectively, you should be able to confidently discuss these potential concerns with hesitant parents.

I found the Most Likely to Succeed film eye-opening as it exemplified what a school might look like under different learning circumstances. At High Tech High they had no bells, integrated subject classes, and focused on personalized, and project-based learning. Personally, I feel like this set-up is definitely a step in the right direction; however, maybe too big of a step. As mentioned in the video, students and parents still care a lot about standardized testing. Whether or not these standardized tests adequately assess students, students need to perform well on them to get into universities and colleges. I think this was my key-take-away from the Most Likely to Succeed film. Often, good marks tell very little about the person and how successful they may be in the future. But with the current system in place, how can you even attempt to get far in life if you cannot perform well on standardized tests? I think it is crucial that as educators, we find a happy medium between the “standardized testing” way of teaching, as well as generalized, project-based, and personalized learning opportunities seen at High Tech High.

We had our first EDCI 336 class on Monday! We got to meet our teacher, go over the course outline, and learn about our assignments. To be honest, it was a lot of information all at once and it was a little bit overwhelming at first!

After a BUNCH of difficulties, I successfully created my WordPress blog! At this point, I am thinking of having a musical focus for my Free Inquiry Project and discussing the many different ways that I use music as a create and emotional outlet in my life. However, this idea could very well still change!!

I have always enjoyed working with technology and would consider myself a fairly “techie” person (aside from the difficulties I faced when creating my blog….). In this course, I look forward to learning more about different sources of technology for myself, as well as how I can incorporate it into my future classrooms!