Digital Technology in Education ~ The Role, The Pros, The Cons

Digital Technology plays a major role in my day to day life. As a fifth grade Humanities teacher, my role is to teach Reading, Writing, and Social Studies in a blended format. Technology allows me to broadcast my teaching ideas to my students in a quicker, more appeasing way. In return, tecnhnology allows my students to complete and submit work quickly and creatively. More specifically, I think back to teaching during the pandemic, and the ways that technology enhanced our learning capabilites. We were able to meet, discuss, and continue education through online meeting platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Because of COVID-19, students and teachers are now more familiar with digital presentations and screen recording programs. The below video, from Today Show Sunday, revisits how we used technology to keep us connected in March of 2020.

Personally, using Zoom, Screencastify, YouTube, and Flip Grid allowed me to flip my teaching for students and helped them better learn material. I still utilize this as a differentiated technique for classroom learning. The negatives of technology come from the many errors that can occur from a poor connection, the inability for some kids to concentrate using technology correctly, or students having access to one to one technology in the first place. All together, this topic is extremely deabtable. Thoughts that many educators have is discussd in a 2019 Ted Talk by Scott Widman below:

After watching this video, and considering my own experiences, I still believe that the pros long outrun the cons of digital technology. Students will be able to display ideas quicker, share what they're learning to more audiences, and gather data from all over the world like never before. Developing skills in this area is advantageous becasue it keeps you up to date and moving forward with a fast-paced, technology-based generation.