Throughout the past few months, I have realized how important incorporating technology into your classroom is as an educator. All of the guest speakers we have had talked about the multiple benefits of technology and the different ways it can be used in your classroom. Of course there are pros to cons to everything, including technology. Some schools may not have the resources to incorporate much technology into their classrooms but I don’t think this should stop educators from sharing this EdTech world with their students. Coding is very popular right now but you don’t necessarily need technology to code. Carrie from Science World showed us how to create our own codes using symbols on a piece of paper. This was my favourite activity thus far. This activity is fun and inexpensive and allows students to start building computational thinking skills. Technology is a great tool that is accessible to all students. Technology gives everyone the opportunity to learn whether it is by using voice apps or by connecting with people from all over the world. As educators we need to decide what is a good balance of using technology in our classrooms and this depends on the needs of our students. It is a bit intimidating knowing that so many educators are on social media and are connecting through those means; it brings an expectation to us who are new in this field. Although you would assume that this generation lives off of social media. I think the hard part is creating unrealistic expectations for ourselves. We try to stay relevant by blogging every day or tweeting but this can be daunting as some guest speakers had mentioned. It was reassuring to know that it is okay to not create an online presence. However, I think social media is a great way to share ideas and to ask for help and as educators this is a very important. As long as our students are benefitting, there should be no specific rule with regards to technology. Students love trying new things and we need to give them the opportunities to do so. The whole concept of EdTech is still pretty new to me but I am excited to implement what I have learned in the past few months and incorporate it into my future teachings.
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