How Tech Intrudes on People’s Lives

We now live in a society which documents everything. This has become a big part of everyone’s lives. In my personal opinion, I think technology has gotten a little bit too involved in our lives. The other possibility is that I am finally growing older and realizing the restrictions that come along with working towards a career. When I was first told I, as a teacher, could get fired for having a photo of myself online holding alcohol or something that even looks like alcohol (not that I do post anything like this), I was appalled. Now, I do recognize that anyone could search up my name and find everything I have ever posted online. I also understand that this could reflect badly on the school I end up working for but I thought we had legalized alcohol and marijuana. Why can teachers still be penalized for doing something that is legal in our own free time? Did I miss this part of the intro to adulthood? Because last time I checked, I was a unique individual who has so much more to offer than how and where I work.

That last paragraph did seem a little bit aggressive so please don’t get me wrong, I do understand how my online profile can be extremely problematic for the school if it is not kept PG 13. There is a high chance students and parents would be able to find things about me online just by searching my name and if any of what they found was worrisome the school board could be contacted. I can definitely see how something like this could blow up and create a major issue. I just am concerned about how we as a society view people. We view them as workers not as individualized human beings here to do so much more than work. If my time on this beautiful earth is summarized by saying she was a great teacher then I did it wrong. I want to be a great adventurer, a friend to many, a loving mother, a wonderful cook, a joyful person, and a hardworking teacher.

Becoming a teacher is what’s most important to me right now so obviously, I will abide by these online rules but they will never sit right with me. I think businesses realize they have all the power and so they do not mind stripping a person of their right to celebrate and post about it online if it means there is no chance of them looking bad. I am also sure if I were the head lady and had to make decisions about what employees are allowed to post online I would probably have rules along the same lines because I recognize this issue is not a big enough one that people will be willing to lose their jobs over this. From the employee side, they are taking away freedoms that originally were not within their control but from the business side, they are only simply trying to prevent issues which totally makes sense.  I do believe it remains an annoying rule but I understand the reasoning behind it.

How Tech Improves People’s Lives

We as teachers are always looking for new tools to help make learning within the classroom easier and less wasteful. Tech has become our solution. Instead of handing out 30 worksheets, marking them, and then having the children just toss them out or lose them, we can now instead assign an online assignment that requires no paper and students will always be able to come back to it if needed. We can test the whole class’s knowledge by using a fun game of Kahoot that also tells us which topics students are struggling with. We can also use tech to stream Ted Talks or informational videos to our classes. There are so many different options and resources that come along with using tech within the classroom.

This week in class we focussed on how we personally can use tech and create with it for our own classrooms. I thought using the SmartArt tool on PowerPoint to create graphs and flow charts was the most amazing thing so I decided to create one for a simple little tester.

This was the first time I had tried using SmartArt and it was so simple and such a great tool to use. You can change the colour, you can change the style, and there are so many options to pick from! I can say with full certainty I will be using SmartArt in the future to create charts, etc. for my own classroom.

I am so grateful I am entering the teacher world during the age of technology as it truly does open up so many more resources for learning and for the connection between teachers all over the world. I will be able to connect with and share resources with so many people all striving for the same goal all over the world. That simple fact makes me so excited to incorporate technology into my own classroom someday.

That’s all for this week! Thanks for reading!

Featured photo by Tittee Parichad on Unsplash.