After working in the field of logistics I decided I wanted to become an educator. I have always had great interaction with children, whether they were my own children, relatives or someone else's. I know how to get children to respond in a way where they comfortable being who they are and they are giving me the respect as an adult without me having to ask for that respect. I guess you can say I know how to carry myself as a person in an authority position without coming across as a bully or a tyrant. I believe if at the core of your character you do not like children or cannot relate to children you should not be teaching. You may not get caught right away but eventually the truth will come out. Right now in our country a lot of soul searching is being done when it comes to educating our children. One of the first steps that need to be taken is to find the right people to educate our children.
When I started ITE 200 I had no idea how I would integrate technology with education. My biggest concern was how realistic is this request for educators? I have volunteered at local schools and saw the usage of computers at times and I thought okay, not bad, I could do that. But after taking ITE 200 I believe the periodic use of the computer is not even scratching the surface of this new age of technology and education. The constant and pursuant push for the integration of technology needs to continue until every educator comes around. The end result will be rewarding for both the educators and the students. The information I received from this class has been invaluable. One of my favorite assignments in this class was "How literate are you". This is a debate I have with my son. He is a digital native. He grew up with technology and has used it every day. I was the digital immigrant. I used the computer once a day for an hour and I was done. Then I went back to school and now I am a leaning digital native. If I have a hard time figuring something out that is computer related, I would ask my son. Sometimes he was helpful and other times he was not. The times he was not helpful I was able to figure it out. But I thought to myself as much time he spends on the computer he should have figured that out. This led me to believe he is not as computer literate as he thinks he is and this is where educators can fill the gap between computer familiarity and computer literacy.
In the logistics field I used Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint quite often. Of the three, I would not have thought to integrate an Excel spreadsheet with educating children. I loved the idea of creating a Timeline with Excel. I will have no problem incorporating Word and PowerPoint in my lessons. I believe Pixie is a great tool for the younger students. I loved the illustrations. It was one of those programs I would label as "educating while having fun". The students will not realize how much they are learning. I find great value in the instructional games. Most children are already playing games on the computer so it makes sense for educators to introduce a variety of instructional games to their students. Math Blaster was a great start to this new phenomenon. Many children are being exposed to different technologies which make it imperative that as educators we are aware of these technologies, familiar with as many of technologies as possible. It is up to the educators to ensure these children are computer literate and can compete with the rest of world once they are out of school.
