People say time flies when you're having fun, but I think technology flies even faster, especially when you've just learned how to use it. I remember being a junior in college, technically speaking, and it seemed like every girl in my sorority had a live "journal- web log". They connected to each other, posted comments to each other, started fights with one another, and the list goes on. I never really got involved for simple thought that I could just call them if I needed them. I didn't see the big deal. Just like I didn't see the big deal with text message, I thought phones were for speaking, not typing. How I wish sometimes I could go back and get those last two years of college "Intro to the Digital Age: The Real World".
I look at those devices now as tools to reach the minds of my students. Technology is the world, and though I know how to wade in the waters and speak the lingo, I still often times feel like I don't belong. I try so hard to be a “techy”, to be "in", to find ways to allow them use to tools that hinder critical thinking in ways that will actually expand their minds. At times I fail, and then there are other times I succeed on a million dollar scale. I live for the moments they can connect the content in my classroom with their everyday lives.
I used blogs last semester to aid students in understanding how to examine and character, theme and other elements of fiction while reading the epic novel Beowulf. Students had to choose a character to follow in the novel, and then create 4 different blog posts in the point of view of the chosen character. They had to not only summarize events that took place in each chapter assigned, but they also had to post several pictures, a video, a quote, and one other widget on their blog that represented or symbolized the character from the novel. I modified this assignment from the original assignment I retrieved from PBS.org. I really loved the way the students were able to learn in their own space, on their own time and make meaning for themselves of the work that was assigned in class. They really had fun with the assignment and I had a chance to sneak in writing while they got to something fun. I followed Rena's footsteps of asking to be a follower and then I could make comments and that made it easier to grade each blog.
I'm sure in a few years there will be so much more for students to do in the classroom with technology, if they're not taking classes online; an entirely different discussion of itself. To that I say "Hakunnah Matatah"...this time I won't let time pass me by!
...and the clouds opened up and God said, "Let there be light, and there was."
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