Testing this out

Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Maybe, but you can definitely teach this old dog to look at things from a different perspective.

Now, should I consider myself an old dog? Probably not. I’m ten years into my career, believing that I’m pretty tech savvy and up to date with the latest in educational technology.

Photo by kaboompics on Pixabay

In 2013 I was using wikispaces – remember wikispaces? – to keep my students up to date on assignments and upcoming work. When that site shut down, I moved to WordPress before my school division made the move to Google Classrooms pre-pandemic. From there I joined my division’s team to support teachers as we rolled out Edsby and started to phase out of Google Classroom.

And there were so many things in between that I gave a try… Edmodo, Class Dojo, Classcraft, among others that are long forgotten.

My personal view of educational technology has always been to make things accessible to students from anywhere – removing the excuse of “I forgot”, and also to save valuable paper as budget cuts have hit my schools. My biggest move into using technology was forced when we ran out of paper (now known as the great paper shortage of 2015) and I shifted almost everything I did into a digital space.

After reading Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change by Niel Postman, however, I’m recognizing that I have always been unconsciously making the assumption that new technology = easier life = GOOD.

I’ve always been ready to jump on the next trend and give new tech a try, and have never stopped to think about the fact that “.. for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage.” (Postman, 1).

Photo by jambulboy on Pixabay