Digital Badge #A- Chapter 1

     After reading the first chapter in our textbook I immediately reflected on the idea of how bias I was about the correlation between technology and students.  I am someone who considers technology to be something of a distraction or irrelevant to a student's full learning capacity.  But after reading about how technologies varies dramatically by race and family income, I found out that my perspective of technology, and their use in and out of classrooms, was constructed primarily out of my social upbringing.  According to the textbook, most African American, Hispanic, and low income youngsters are less likely to have access to the latest technologies.  With that said, I fall in to that category being Hispanic and growing up in a low income family. The only access to a computer that I had was at my school or at my public library. But even though I had very limited access to a computer, I found it exciting and relieving to do homework with the assistance of technology.
     Speaking of "assistance," another section of the book that I wanted to reflect on is how we now have 21st century learners and therefore we should be teaching them with 21st century technologies.  As much as teachers, or potential, teachers want to stick with the basics of creating a lesson plan, we have to come to grasp that technology can help us enhance our ideas.  An example that I came up with was having the students use tablets to read books.  With the use of a tablet, the teacher can have students digitally highlight sentences that they don't understand and go back to it at the end of class.  Or, another example, the students can read books on their tablets and when they come across words they don't comprehend, they could immediately look it up; via internet.  This, overall, not only enhances a lesson plan, but in turn it still gives the teacher the ability to do their job and not feel like technology is doing everything.
     My final reflection comes from the idea of having a "Digital Identity."  In this 21st century,  your identity with technology will get you very far in the working force.  I believe this to be true because in every job application that requires a higher institute of learning, alongside of that comes the section if whether or not you have any experience working with technology.  In this day of age I do believe creating a digital identity is very crucial; especially if you want to become a teacher.  With this adopted identity, more teachers can build stronger relationships with students in and out of the classroom.  Also, and more importantly, having the knowledge of varies technologies will benefit the students and therefore prepare them for the future.
     In conclusion, there may be others who can relate to what I have reflected on, and there may be those who completely disagree with me.  But the point of the matter is that I have come to accept that technology will always be here and that it'll continue to grow.  Also, it can really benefit us to learn all that we can about it so that we could set great examples for the next generation of educators.  Overall, becoming a teacher in this 21st century looks and sounds quite overwhelming, but at the end of it all, I believe it'll be worth it.


Resoueces Textbook - Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.


Incorporating an ipod to the lesson plan!