Technology Autobiography

My experiences with technology seems to have started back in the stone ages. I typed my first school paper in 4th grade on a type writer. In 5th grade my parents got a work processor. It thought that was really fancy. Those first years the only thing technology seemed to bring to me, was an efficient way to turn in school work.

During middle school my family got our first computer with home Internet. While I still used the computer for school, I was now able to research for projects. I had all kinds of information at my finger tips. Unfortunately I was using free AOL dial-up disks to get on the Internet. School papers and projects would take me hours. I can remember a few times when I even gave up and opened books (heaven forbid) to get my information. During middle school and high school many of my teachers would require that some of our sources for projects come from the Internet. It was often easier for me to do this work at the school building because of my slow dial up connection at home.

As high school progressed, technology and even dial up itself got faster and faster. The first computer my family had, boasted a whopping 64 megs of RAM. WOW. My iPod now holds 8 gigs of music and I don't even know how much memory we have on our home computer now, but it is a lot. All I know is that I can take endless photos of my son and never run out of storage space. Even my phone is more high tech than my first computer. I can get on google maps, face book, and my email all from my phone, and I don't even get charged extra per month for this.

Technology has gotten faster, smaller and more expansive on a daily basis. My husband and I both work for Geek Squad. While I work in customer service and don't' begin to know everything about computers, i get to see the newest coolest stuff come in and out of our work place. I can't believe how far we've come. When I was in middle school, I never thought I would be able to survive my little sister going to live in China to teach college English, but though the continuous innovation technology offers, I can sit with my two year old and talk to her face to face over Skye. Coincidentally, Dillon, goes over to the computer chair and pats on it saying "Want Dani" when he wants to talk to his aunt. When I was 16, I got lost everywhere I went. I now have GPS at my fingertips on my phone to tell me where to go. I can even get it to tell me where to go in a British accent! Amazing.

We can do SO much with technology. Perhaps the only downfall is that because we can do so much, we are required to do so much. Our jobs and our educations give us no choice but to adapt and learn most every new thing about technology. If we don't, we may run the risk of falling behind. If we don't adapt, we run the risk of becoming just as obsolete as the machines we so readily cast aside.

From what we have discussed above, any teacher can see how important it is to use technology in the classroom. We are tasked with preparing children for their futures. In turn we must teach kids how to learn and use technology that has not yet been created. Some of our students will still be working in living in times far after we have passed on. My conclusion is that we have a responsibility to our students of every age K-12 to teach them to use the tools they will be required to use in their jobs, lives and futures. We must also teach them how to be adaptable and creative. Perhaps it will be one of our students who creates the next best technological break though in medicine, or the next best super computer, or some tool that allows us to colonize the moon. Who knows. As teachers, the reach of our influence can span generations.

Having now been through almost half of this class, I am so excited about all the new ways I am learning to use technology. I really believe that many of these mediums will make learning not only bearable for the students but engaging and interesting. For myself, just getting to play with all of these neat new tools has sparked my curiosity and creativity to delve into my content are and see what I can create with my new techy tool belt.