TCE Teaching with Technology
Hey all you tangible bookophiles or technophobes, or what have you. You are not alone. Lots of English professionals have a distrust of technology. Many of us are into the tangible turning of the page. Other disciplines outside of humanities do not fear or bidistrust technology as much as we do. Personally, I prefer to read on paper, and write on a computer. Reading a PDF or website is still not the same as writing in the margins with colorful highlighters, messy scribbles, and tiny diagrams. A part of me is not willing to give up the opportunity to artistically illustrate and notate my thoughts. But we're the ones to think about digital literacy, not only as a necessary tool or skill, but as a changing social construction, which leads to cognitive changes as well. I believe our brains have become less linear moving and more spatially oriented due to the way information is laid out on the computer screen. I believe that we (humans) have started to become more visually oriented and more open-minded (culturally) because of technology too. About teaching with technology: I am disorganized and often spill coffee (or wine, oops) on students’ papers. If I had a digital portfolio for my students, it would help me stay organized and I wouldn't have to carry the dreadful pile of papers. I have always hated that "pile of papers" that I have had to bring home time and time again, and I hope that having the papers as digital files might actually help lighten the load (physically but perhaps psychologically as well). I see technology as a tool for helping the day to day managing of classroom activities, and I will definitely use it for that. I hope to expand to thinking about other digital avenues outside of educational platforms and email. On the other hand, I don’t want to create more work for the students for the sake of being technically savvy. If I use digital tools, I want them to be useful creatively or practically, and not just random tweets to put my words out into the universe. Recently, I started my first twitter account. It was a request from an instructor in the Writing Institute training, so I acquiesced. I think I tweeted three times for practice, and now I am bored. I am not one for small talk, and not much else can be done in so few words. Plus, I do not want my small thoughts to go out into the universe to be discoverable by anyone and everyone. However, for the sake of progress, I will try it out in this one group.
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