Hello EC&I 830-mates!
If you have snooped around on my blog, or taken a class with me before, you will know a little about my background. For those who are crossing paths with me for the first time, I offer you my Lower Deck (not Upper Deck) Teacher Card for 2023. Click on the sides of the image to flip it over!
The name of my blog is not indicative of my comfort level with technology, it is a reflection of my attitude when technology does not want to cooperate. I belong to the microgeneration of Xennials, as explained in this 2018 article from USA Today. I grew up a latch key kid with technological advancements finding me as I grew up. I remember rotary phones and dial-up internet. I did not get my first cell phone, the Nokia 2110, when I could afford it and the plan. I recall MS-DOS, Dot Matrix printers, and the original Oregon Trail. I chatted on MSN Messenger, went through a Blackberry phase, and burned CD’s with music found on BearShare, Kazaa, and Limewire. I am proud to say that I have my original Hotmail account and it is appropriately named almost 20 years later.
Now I have my iPhone to do everything for me. iTunes means that I am paying for music. I can print things to work from home, off of a laptop connected to wifi in our house. I do have a bad habit of screening my phone calls and opting for a text message if I do not deem a call worth taking. I am passive on social media, mostly consuming, rarely creating content. Lastly, I blog!
Technology has quietly become an absolute necessity to do my job. Attendance, IIPs, marks and progress reports, even behaviour documentation is all done on MySchoolSask (insert groans here). The Google Classroom (insert another groan here – data mining) has become an important part of my job. This year, being the first year in ten that I am not teaching a split class, I have been able to have just about everything that we do in class show up in the Classroom. If a lesson has a video, audio clip, handout, website, or anything other than discussion involved, I have been posting it there with the hopes that I am building a foundation for future years. Even if students are submitting paper (yes I still use pencil and paper), we use Classroom to have them “turn in” their work, helping me keep better track of student work. I am also able to provide feedback to students either as a private comment or right in their documents. I know there is more out there beyond Google Classroom, but it works for us. I actually have students who are absent able to submit work or take part in discussion using the comments section of certain tasks we do – I would not mention that if it has not happened. I do rely heavily on email for communication with home, unless it is phone call worthy.
Looking ahead a few months, I am considering two more ways to incorporate technology into my craft. First, having students create websites (yes, Google Sites) to populate a class website to keep home connected to the classroom. Second, I would like to get into podcasting and do one with students at school. First I need to free up some time and finish up a certain time consuming venture…
Now let’s get after some EC&I 830!
✌
Bart,
It was so fun & enjoyable reading through your blog post and getting to know you a little bit more. As I read through I felt there were many times I connected to what you were sharing. I too grew up communicating through MSN messenger, burning CD’s, and am proud to say my hotmail address is almost 20 years strong. I should probably thank my parents for that one!
I also use MySchoolSask and Google Classroom (insert another groan), but I’m also eager to learn more and expand the technology tools I use within my classroom. I think there is a lot more out there that can be beneficial for both us as the educators, along with our students. I love the podcast idea & I really hope you take off with that. What a neat idea!
Best of luck to you this semester, I am excited to read more of your blogs & hopefully be equally as entertained each time!
– Kennedy
Hi Bart. Thanks for taking me down memory lane with this post. I also still use my first Hotmail account. I can clearly remember setting it up and sending emails to my friends from an internet cafe when I moved overseas. When I found a library with “free” internet, it was life-changing. At the time, I was baffled that my Australian friends had cell phones that could send “text messages.” I remember coming home to tell all my friends about the cool new technology that I was sure would make its way to us in North America someday. It’s pretty cool to think about how far we’ve come! Looking forward to learning with you in this class.
Hello Bart,
I cannot say how excessively your early life was nostalgic for me. I can step more back and remember calling from phone booths.
It was not long time ago that thinking about calling and seeing your addressee on the other side of the line seemed to be just like Jules Verne’s fantasies (20 years can not be regarded so long for such a huge conversion), which mostly were invented afterwards.
Once I was copying my information or photos to a floppy or CD, I could not imagine how capable flashes or phone memories would be in future. Hope I can catch up with all these changes as you did.
Hani