Michael Wesch’s presentation on the history of YouTube had a major theme to me. Community. YouTube has created a global community consisting of millions of people. Wesch talks about the “global connections” YouTube, and now every social media platform, that can create “unimaginable possibilities”. Social media and YouTube have evolved over the years and more people are connected than ever before, but somehow still, people feel alone or isolated. In an article by Forbes, multiple studies have been done as to why people feel alone despite the global connectedness of social media. Kids today spend less time socializing in person with one another than kids from the 90s, 80s and early 2000s. I am not saying technology and social media are bad, and in many cases I believe is good, you just have to take the good things with the ugly.
Technology I believe has already become a vital part of our classrooms. As a future educator, I try to write down every website or technological tool they use to help me as a future educator. Google Classroom, Desmos for math, reddit threads for ideas, and I was able to find someone who created a list of 100’s of sources of technological tools to help aid teachers. The internet and social media is helpful for other teachers to be able to connect with each other. Teachers can share experiences, resources, and lesson plans and be able to offer advice. Teachers helping teachers has never been easier than now.
Students have access to an almost limitless resource pool with the internet at their fingertips. They and are growing up in a technological world, and teachers need to adapt their classrooms to help educate students in a familiar way that can connect to students. Technology is not going anywhere and I believe has many positives in the classroom, technology helps promotes student engagement and an interactive environment to grow.