Technology has changed dramatically every aspect of our life. We probably all agree that technology has changed our lives in countless ways, revolutionizing how we work, live, and play. A lot of the changes to how we live our lives are very amazing, and I can’t imagine not having them. We may easily speak with family members over the internet, or we can work from home and cooperate and communicate with coworkers in real-time.
From my childhood to adulthood, different technologies were always a prominent part of my daily life. Although in my childhood we don’t have smart gadgets like smartwatches, tablets, smarts phones laptops for each individual, and voice assistant devices but we do have a computer that was fixed installed in our home, and it was normally for family use. In school, we do go to the computer lab, which was considered to be the best period for all students in their school day 🙂
As I was a Montessori teacher back in my country I used a lot of technologies in my classroom. I use both the real and digital flashcards to practice facts and other materials with my students so that they were not only familiar with real flashcards but also connected with digital technology as it was quite fun for the students too. I show them small cartoon movies through digital projectors. I also sometimes use smart-board too for showing images of fruits, vegetables, animals etc. But of course, the COVID-19 virus changed the way we all live and the way we educate our children; Montessori is no exception. Schools have been compelled to change their learning plans to a digital format as a result of school closures across the country, often with only a few weeks’ notice. This appears to be a direct contradiction to Montessori philosophy at first view. But we all believed that education should be prepared for life so we change our in-person format into the online base format. So we arrange zoom classes for our kids. Hence, the need of spreading knowledge among our students, and all sectors of society has been highlighted by this pandemic. If online learning technology can help, we must all use it to the fullest extent possible.
Technology has impacted almost every aspect of life today, and education is no exception. I believe that technology has so much to offer especially in education and for an educator to get closer to our students and deliver the knowledge effectively and efficiently. Technology is a powerful tool that improved, supports, and transforms education in many ways such as digital textbooks, and Google classrooms to facilitate learning, research new information, project work, student activity, etc. As a student, it allows me to learn outside of the classroom and library. I can virtually meet, collaborate, and produce material thanks to technology. It aids my study, sharing of ideas, and learning of specialized skills. Technology also assists me in informing vital networking relationships with others in my field. For example, I connect with professors, classmates, and others on LinkedIn and other platforms. As I’m doing a Master’s in teaching, learning, and leadership program here in Regina, my life is becoming even more familiar with the technology. Due to the covid19 pandemic, I use zoom to take classes, for all of my courses I had to interact with other people, it is not just me and the computer screen. Be it emailing the teacher for help on a question, asking the advice of other adults and students, questioning people for an assignment, studying with someone for a test, or having someone look over an essay, I had a wide circle of people supporting me every day. I use google slides for presentations in my different courses, and by taking the course EC&I 830, I am now familiar with the discord app, WordPress which is quite interesting as I didn’t hear of these apps until now. So with the passage of time, I am becoming a tech-savvy person. 🙂
In my personal life, I use a lot of social media apps like Facebook, twitter, snapchat, Instagram as a social networking sites to connect with my family and friends. As I’m an international student, I continuously required different networking sites in order to connect with my parents back in my country through smartphone, tab or laptop. I also do a lot of online shopping from different online sites.
Technology advancements have enhanced almost every aspect of our lives, and the best is yet to come. Technology is transforming education, changing how, when and where students learn and empowering them at every stage of their journey. The positive impact of technology on society has brought about transformation and enabled us to achieve previously unimaginable heights. Nobody else has revolutionized the way people think about technology, which is why it is and will always be so significant. As a result, I believe that technology plays an essential role in our daily lives in a variety of ways that we cannot ignore.
Thank you for the very insightful post, Fasiha. I am particularly interested in your switch to taking Montessori online. You’re right – it does sometimes seem like a contradiction of the Montessori principles, but yes, it’s all about preparing children for the world (and for better or worse, this is how it currently works/looks). What apps/programs did you find worked best with Montessori families? I have been an online teacher since the pandemic began, and I have many families who are online BUT also anti/limited screen for their children. I try to design educational lessons where the students learn something on the computer, and then have to apply it to their everyday life – like a cooking lesson or nature walk. I am very interested in how you made it work for you. Thanks for any further insights.
Thankyou so much Kimberly Kipp. Actually our online system was quite different in my country. We don’t use aaps/programs for designing lessons for our kids. We just conduct online zoom classes in which we just focus on oral lessons which includes phonics, numbers, colors, shapes and other concepts and for each lesson we send parcel of different activities related to the lesson to our students. and the end of each week parents submit their children work at school, which we later on share with all students with appreciation. It is because we don’t wants our children screen time increase because they are already spending time on screen during taking those online classes. I know this is not the answer you are looking for, but this is how our school system works in my country.
Very thoughtful post Fasiha. It is true that Covid-19 made a huge impact on how we all used technology in our classrooms, and it sounds like you experienced the same with your teaching in a Montessori classroom. There seems to be no escaping technology and one has to embrace it and try to incorporate it into our lives in ways to enrich it rather than take it away. As educators, we have an important job to teach our students the appropriate skills to navigate new programs and use them to enhance their learning and showcase their work. Even as teachers, are always the students when it comes to technology and learning all the new programs to aid in our own journey so we all can become “tech-savvy”! Thanks for the interesting post and I look forward to reading your future thoughts!
Thank you so much Arkin for your thoughtful comment.
Yes, I too agree that COVID has impacted the way that we teach in many different ways. Each of our online experiences has looked vastly different, and some people have definitely had better experiences than others. Now more than ever, I think that we need to shift our focus to digital citizenship and teach kiddos and all people alike how to properly conduct themselves online. We need to take more of a proactive approach, rather than a reactive approach when they are met with a challenge.