It was surprising for me to actually write everything out like this in terms of tech used throughout my day. I have said in the past that I am not techie yet as I write this I realize just how much technology I use for both work and home life.
My day with technology starts with checking Twitter, the weather, and Facebook, yes, I am old. 🙂 I communicate with my family and friends via text on and off during the day. With my kids, we use discord and Kid Messenger to send messages. I also have various games I play on my phone, word and strategy games are my favourite.Â
At work, I am on the computer checking emails, doing attendance, marking, and checking my online daybook for what comes first. I have been using PlanBoard for my daybook for 4 years now and absolutely love it. I do most of my planning for lessons and units online nowadays. It has been a very long time since I bought a teaching book. Almost everything comes from the web. Most communication and booking of events happen online at my school. There are no paper sign-ups for anything anymore. All system-wide communication is also done online. Needless to say, I am online a lot during the day.
My class uses Google Classroom and Google chat every day. I find some students are more open to sending me messages rather than coming up to ask a question. Some use it all of the time and others just once in a while. Many of our assignments are on Google Classroom and the students and I do research on our laptops daily. I like Google Classroom because there is no need to print and waste paper. I assign, mark, and return online. When students are away they can access our assignments without having to come in for homework. This was a game-changer during Covid. It was so much easier to get work to the students. Having said that there were students we needed to lend laptops to. There were also a couple of students who didn’t have internet and so they needed things printed for them. Tech is great when you have access to it.
In the evenings my use of tech is FaceTime with my sister and even white noise for the night and my alarm clock for the morning. Tech is used throughout the day in my home and at work.
Hi Kari
It always strikes me how pervasive technology has become in our daily lives that it becomes almost invisible. I can still remember when my parents would buy newspapers at the corner store so they could stay informed. Things have come a long way since then. I too don’t consider myself a tech person, but the more I think about the my average teaching day the more I realize how utterly dependent I have become on it. Any time I need an example question it is off to Google image search.
During the pandemic I relied heavily on Google Classroom as well, but I found more often than not I wanted to print off and mark assignments with a pen. I don’t know how it is for your subject area, but in mathematics I find it more convenient to handle physical work. Have you run into any challenges or snags with online marking? Have you had to deal with any situations of plagirism or academic dishonesty?
Hi Matthew,
I teach 7/8 and have been lucky with students doing the work. It is pretty easy to tell at this level if they have copied something. I do agree with you, Math is something I tended to send books home for. We would have our google meet and students would work on their booklets along with me.
I had the same thoughts about how I rely on tech so much in my everyday life and work. It would be a big change if it were to disappear one day.
It’s interesting how successful you are at using online resources for your planning and assignments. I have found our internet has crashed enough that relying entirely with online resources to be challenging.
I use word to plan my days with a fill in the blank template I redo every year. My school has also started to send all communication digitally. While this saves on paper it also means I miss out on a lot of communication that is just going to parents. It has also led to some confusion from parents that do not have reliable access. Has this been an issue with you at all?
That access also means that many of my students are not able to submit assignments online. That combined with the fact that I give them class time to work on assignments, results in a combination of typed and hand written work. Do you have a class set of laptops? I’m just curious how you are able to do so much of your daily work online.
Hi Mike,
I am lucky enough to have a class set of laptops in my classroom all day, every day. I know this is not the case in all schools and would have to rely more on paper and pencil work if I was not in the situation I am currently in. I am moving schools this year and expect I will have to change a lot of my teaching to accommodate a lack of laptops.
We had a lot of issues with the internet at the beginning of the year but things got better around December and have had no issues since.
Our school communicates both online and via paper. We still send home a newsletter every month and I wish my kid’s school still did. I find that often things aren’t communicated well and some schools don’t always add everything to their website calendar. I am often in the dark about things that are happening.
I love using Google Classroom in my room too. It has been a bit more tricky without the use of my teacher laptop to keep things up to date and running, and a lot more needs to be done at home with my WIFI right now, but it has saved the paper, helped keep kiddos organized and more! It has been super helpful for sure.
I know that some themes for the blog condensed articles right away, but I also put a blog tip in the Discord Chat about the READ MORE block function. This shortens the post so that it saves room on your main page, and people can easily see the differences between your blog. This may be helpful when people are commenting on your posts. Just food for thought.
Everything else looks fantastic!