My teaching career has ebbed and flowed in terms of engagement with technology. When I first started teaching, the school where I taught was fairly progressive with technology use in classrooms, and students had ample access to computers. Smartboards were all the rage. I spent quite a bit of time getting familiar with the various technologies available to our classrooms.

     Then I moved to Canada and started working at a land-based elementary school that basically removed technology from the learning experience for students until they reached grade 6 or 7. I had to really adapt how I approached teaching, getting a lot more hands-on.

     This year, I made a career change and have been working with at-risk youth and at-risk special education students. I have found these programs to be a bit of a hybrid of my two other areas of experience – a happy medium, I suppose I would say. The students I work with have varied skill levels across age groups, so quick content generators that have adaptable skill levels and high-interest topics have been immensely helpful.

     Consistently, I have used the Google Suite in my classrooms. I use Google Docs, Sheets, Classroom, Gmail, and Slides regularly with my students and to shape my teaching methods. Recently, I have had to switch over to the Microsoft Suite, and it has been a bumpy transition. It don’t hate it, but I would not say that I am a fan. I found Google to be much more user-friendly friendly, but it may just be a “tech language” barrier I have yet to fully understand. 

     This school year, I’ve been learning more about AI tools for education. I have explored Canva, MagicSchool, and SuperTeacher for creating teaching materials. ChatGPT has been a valuable tool for generating ideas, and Grammarly helps me proofread my writing. I know I am just dipping my toe into the world of AI in the educational world, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I am a huge fan of working smarter, not harder, especially in education when teachers are already spread so thin. But, AI comes with costs as well and the toll it takes on power creation to run AI globally is something we need to take seriously. That is a bigger debate that I look forward to getting into throughout this semester. 

     I also use social media as an educational tool in a variety of ways. I often find inspiration from other educators on Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, etc. I have several teacher friends who supplement their incomes by being educational “influencers,” and while this is not something I think I could do personally, I do think the people who make that work have a pretty sweet thing going.  

     On a more personal level, I rely on technology for a lot of my own learning. Audiobooks are the #1 way I consume content. Text-to-speech programs like Listening have saved me throughout my grad program because I am not a very fast reader, but I am a strong auditory learner. Adapting articles to audio has allowed me to get a full experience in each of my classes and maintain some semblance of my personal life at the same time.

I do find it more and more challenging to keep up with rapidly adapting technology. I know the tools are out there but it is hard to know what is worth investing time in learning and what is going to be a passing fad or worse a waste of time.