Productivity suites played a very crucial role in developing digital literacy and enhancing 21st-century skills among students by providing them with practical knowledge for the workforce. In my own experience working in diverse educational settings, particularly working with Piramal Foundation and Byju’s, I have seen how these tools help us in developing skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. Platforms such as docs, sheets and slides enabled my  students to format documents, analyze data, and create presentations that are very necessary for today’s digital world.  During my work on improving reading literacy among underserved communities, I have seen how introducing basic productivity tools helped my students in enhancing their knowledge and upgrading themselves with better skills.

Moreover, the cloud-based features of these suites helps in promoting teamwork, a skill that I have prioritized in my teaching. Reflecting on my previous work at Banyan Tree School, I encouraged students to use google slides presentations, helping them learn to work together on projects in real-time. While going through this blog by Anna McDonagh, he has mentioned the ability to collaborate digitally enhances  interpersonal and project management skills, both critical for today’s workplace. The use of productivity tools  has also helped my students to improve their communication skills by allowing them to present information in the class. Furthermore, providing students more opportunity to creatively design and integrate multimedia elements into their work will enhance their imagination power that will help them in future workforce.

These tools are widely used in various professional settings and giving students hands-on learning on these platforms will assist them in directly moving to the workforce. Their adaptability encourages lifelong learning, which I found useful as I moved through various roles in education, such as teaching, research, and mentoring. However, In my opinion there are still a lot of gaps that are still unaddressed. These tools  are excellent for building basic digital literacy, but during my work  with the Career Plus Program at Byju’s, Some students have faced numerous challenges  to utilize these resources due to a lack of equipment, internet connection, or software licenses. Thus, creating a digital divide that  prevents certain pupils from learning the full set of abilities that are required to succeed in modern professions.

Additionally, productivity suites do not always teach students how to follow digital ethics, privacy, or the critical evaluation of information, areas that are crucial for responsible digital citizenship. Another limitation is that online collaboration is easy where people can connect from remote areas but somehow they feel face to face communication to be more effective in understanding others skills such as emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and leadership  which  I believe they are better developed through direct human interaction.

 In conclusion, productivity suites are very important  for fostering essential digital and professional skills that provide students with a solid foundation for future career success. My experience in both urban and rural education settings has shown that while these tools offer great value, we also need to address the gaps in advanced technical training, digital ethics, and equitable access remains critical to fully preparing students for the challenges of the 21st-century workforce.

Early in my career when I started teaching without any formal learning on education and theories of knowledge, I used to follow certain elements of behaviorism that mostly include organizing and managing the classroom through various reinforcement techniques. In my early years I used to struggle in finding a balance between my teaching and engaging students. After a certain time I realized that things were not going my way and started planning on strategies to shift my approach towards a more student centered approach. I started emphasizing on lesson planning and understanding how children process the information that shows a strong connection to cognitive theories. This change came when I started my bachelors degree in education and learned the concept of educational psychology. This has helped me to move towards cognitive learning and got to know about children’ cognitive process and clear understanding on why some students struggled with simple concepts. These understanding allowed me to adapt cognitive theories in my teaching.

I remember one incident, when I was teaching in grade 2 and one girl raised a challenging question. Earth is known as a blue planet because its made up of water and you told water has no color  has made me think again about my approach. I realized that teaching is not about delivering  information but it’s about engaging and facilitating their critical thinking. This has led me to move towards a constructivist approach.

Over these years of my teaching career, my beliefs have changed significantly with the experiences. In the initial days I was more focused on delivering content and believed that subject mastery is important to be an effective teacher. With experience in the social sector and working for the improvement of underserved community children’s education has nurtured me the importance of inclusivity and holistic development of children.

  Educational technology has played a crucial role in shaping out the structure of the learning and how learning has to be delivered. Today I see a complete transition from the traditional classroom tools to use of artificial intelligence in designing personalized learning. I see an integration of digital literacy that enhances our teaching and learning. A contemporary definition of education technology could be the use of technology in such a strategic way that helps to improve the engagement, is accessible in an educational setting and enhances the learning outcomes of the child.

Looking at the historical context, educational technology history is quite rich which we can see from the use of slate boards to smart boards. The journey shows a very critical point made by Neil Postman “ all technological changes are a trade off”. This gives an understanding that whatever new innovations offer, it comes with certain challenges. For example, Today we see advancement in digital technologies that has enriched our knowledge through ease of access but it has also introduced a lot of concerns about screen time.

My Understanding and practice of educational technology has been shaped by a rich historical and philosophical context. In Postman’s articlehttp://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/postman.pdf he has mentioned technology being a   “ Faustian bargain” from which I completely agree. I believe educational technology provides a lot of opportunities in terms of what we think, interact and learn but it also widens the gap between those who have and those who have no access to digital. I can relate this to my previous experience working in one of the aspirational districts in India. In order to improve reading literacy we have launched an application called BOLO app that helps students to guide them in reading. But this has led to a lot of challenges as students screen time has increased on the mobile and they have misused it.

To conclude, it’s important we need to take postman’s advice that “ we need to proceed with our eyes open so that we may use technology rather than be used by”. In my opinion everyone should follow these principle when integrating Edtech in his work that should enhance rather than replacing the human experiences of learning.

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