First post of EC&I830, sharing about my day using technology. Technology is everywhere and is used most of the time in the day. Since childhood, I have been using technology socially and educationally. I remember that in my school days when I was a kid, I used to attend computer classes since kindergarten. People around the globe are using technology and other constraints of development in a very advanced way of life. From business professionals to small toddlers everyone uses technology in a very user-friendly and efficient manner. I use technology a lot in my daily life. Firstly being a full-time student, I need my laptop for classes, and for that, we use zoom and COVID-19 Pandemic, which has proved that life needs technology. Shifting students from a classroom to online classes were very challenging as well as great learning for teachers and students. I am not tech savvy person but after attending last semester’s class #eci832, I became more confident and learned some important lessons about media literacy. Technology enters the role of a well-being coach, supporting people in the achievement of personal goals and behavior change. The present research explores the notion that just like in face-to-face settings, the form of dialogue may present an essential factor for motivation and ultimately behavior change.
Personal Experience
Talking about my personal journey, even though I have been using many apps like Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram as social networking sites. However, in the past few months as our Major Project in my last course, I tried to use these apps from Digital Citizenship and Media Literacy lens. It is a great lesson for me as I have never worked or get involved in these apps so much. Also, I tried collating some points that I learned from using these apps. If anyone likes to read about it, can open this link.
Educational Experience
As I stated that I am from India and was working as a Pre-Primary teacher. I have been using some tools like Interactive boards and Smart-boards for our kids on daily basis. I use to play stories and games for some interactive sessions. Since I moved here, I have been working as an Early Childhood Educator in daycare at the YMCA of Regina for the past 8 months and here, we use an app called Vooks, it’s a storytelling app and used various animations to build great communication skills for our kids. It is used on a daily basis and is played on an I-pad or smartboards. Also, for parent’s and educator’s communication Weemarkable app has been used, here we upload each and every detail about a child for instance Daily Play experience, food, nap time, and many more things. So, that parents feel connected and it has been used both by parents as well as educators.
I know that we are all engaged and stay busy in this technological world in one or the other way. Technology is growing so fast and sometimes it feels that we don’t have our personal space because technology is everywhere, nobody is alone!! I want to know more thoughts about your experiences and how technology brings challenges to our lives.
Thanks,
Gunpreesh Kaur 🙂
Hi Gunpreesh!
Thank you so much for sharing your tech insights on your blog, I really enjoyed reading it! Not to mention that your blog page is absolutely beautiful, I love it!
I appreciate you mentioning some tech tools and apps that you currently are using at the YMCA. I am not familiar with Vooks, but being a Kindergarten teacher it sounds like it could be a great fit for my students and our classroom. I definitely plan on checking it out, thank you for the recommendation!
As an educator, one of the challenges that I am currently facing with technology is knowing that not all of my students and their families have access to tech sources and internet in their homes. Therefore, I have continued to still use agendas and notes sent home on paper in their backpacks to ensure that all students and their families are up to date on school related information. I do feel that it is important to be mindful of this, and I most likely will still continue with this same approach in years to come. I am certain that technology will continue to grow and evolve at such a rapid pace, but no matter what, we will continue to still have student families that do not have the money or resources to access these tech tools from home.
Thank you, so much for your beautiful comment. Also, Vooks is a great app especially for kinders as it gives a variety of animated stories and for teachers its a free app and gives complimentary teacher’s kit every week.
Hi Gunpreesh,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and concerns about technology. I certainly agree with what you said we don’t have our personal space because technology is everywhere. Especially in China during the COVID-19 pandemic, technology is an important tool for the government to control society. They can track your phone, like where did you go, how long did you stop by one place, what did you buy, etc. If one person has COVID in this place, who are the people who stay with that person in the same place at the same time. You have nowhere to hide. It is scary to think of your travel path has been tracked all the time. This technology is used as an anti-epidemic method to track the virus in China. I agree with you that you have no privacy and no personal space because these types of technology are applied in our daily life.
Echo
Yes, I truly agree and sympathize with the people of China and many other countries as with COVID-19, many things were changed and nothing is personal now.
Thank you for your sharing your experiences on your blog. I really enjoyed reading your thoughts. Also, thanks for telling about Vooks app as I did not knew about it earlier. I also use Social Media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and so on daily. We all use technology even while shopping, watching movies or travelling anywhere. Also, we forget that we are putting privacy at stake but one has no choice as we are too depended on technology and without it we can not even think to survive.
Also, in the time of Pandemic, we noticed that how technology has saved many people from losing their jobs.
I believe and agree with your thought Aman, we don’t have any choice anymore as we are too dependent on technology now.
Thank you for sharing this informative post!!
Technology is simply another name for tool, and it has had a significant impact on our lives. When we first woke up in the morning, our eyes searched for our phone.
Eating ? Phone . What about shopping? source of entertainment via phone. Are you unsure about something? Phone. We can leave without air nowadays, but not without a phone.
I completely agree with you, technology advances on a regular basis in all areas, and I, like everyone else, use Facebook, Instagram, and other social media apps on a daily basis. I was not tech savvy prior to taking EC&I832, but this course has been quite beneficial in teaching and learning about various digital media and tools. Even the education sector has been influenced in several ways.
Thank you so much Gunpreesh for sharing a very informative and thoughtful tech blog. I am very much interested in the tech tools that you mention in your blog i.e. Vooks and Weemarkable app. I am definitely gonna explore those apps. Thank you for sharing and recommendation 🙂
I really like how you changed up your theme. I also like the front page and how the posts are condensed, easy to see the difference, making it much easier to comment on. I really like when people have themes that do this, or when they use the ‘read more’ block. It really makes commenting go a lot more smoothly, and I can easily find the differences between posts. Your blog looks great!
Hey Gunpreesh,
I loved the theme of your blog page as everyone else commented here. 😉
And I do feel you that we can’t feel ourselves being alone with the technology in our hands (Smartphones) and around us every time. Even though we are so far from our family, it keeps us connected and that’s what is keeping us away from feeling ‘ALONE’ in this far away place.