Blog Post 2
In my k-12 education, using Office products was usually my best option. Early on, Word was much less expensive and much more common than other word processing software, so I used it as an elementary schooler, taking advantage of my dad's subscription. In middle school, I had to take a class in computers and technology that required a certification in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I passed the class fine, but found a lot of it to be overcomplicated and unnecessary for where I was in education at the time. For most of high school, I used Google Docs and other Google products because they were free and could be easily shared and accessed from different computers. It wasn't until I was a college student using Canvas that I returned to using Office products, including Word--my classes required me to submit everything as a Word document. Early in the transition, I wrote and edited my papers on Google Docs before copy-pasting them into Word documents for formatting and submission. Now, with FSU paying for OneDrive and Office, I've embraced Word for all of my essays and typed notes.
The ISTE standard that's most important to me is Standard 2.3--Citizen. As technology advances and creeps into all areas of life, it's becoming more important for children to use these tools responsibly, and their parents are often ill-equipped to teach them. Information online is highly accessible but often compressed and warped for digestibility or entertainment, so kids need to be taught to be wary and critical of online sources. Any student with a cell phone has the immediate ability to record and broadcast their surroundings, leading to concerns of privacy and bullying. It has also never been easier to cheat--AI in particular makes it extremely easy for students to submit responses to assignments without ever engaging directly with the material. These resources, if abused, deny kids the ability to learn critical thinking, develop compassion, or acquire the skills that school is there to teach them. Teachers need to set a positive example with their own uses of tech, and build moral standards into assignments that involve tech.
The expression "digital native" leads to false impressions. The youth of today have grown up in a world more shaped by technology than ever before, but kids of different backgrounds will have widely varying personal experiences with the Internet. Teachers should never assume that all children of an age group have equal expertise with technology. Some kids, for economic or ideological reasons, will have extremely limited access to technology. Others will be "iPad kids"--used to playing addictive games on user-friendly interfaces, but not prepared to use "unfun" word processers, research tools, or other educational technologies. In my relatively poor hometown, digital education was a part of the curriculum for my time in school, but dropped later as educators assumed that incoming children would already be experienced with technology. These children were failed horribly, and many struggled with extremely basic computer skills.
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