Reflection
Digital technology is continually changing, and new developments are happening every day. With this continual change, I have learnt of the multiple different technologies to explore and use in a classroom setting. As a digital native teacher, I need to embrace and learn the purpose of the new technologies (Howell 2012). When planning to teach with digital technologies knowing what and why will help develop digital fluency and purposeful learning. For example, Briggs and Makice use the example of twitter asking, “what is happening?” instead of “what are you doing? It changes the focus from inward to outward” (Briggs and Makice, pg 65 2011).
The technologies I used for the website is Voki, Animation, Prezi and Screencast. They were hard to navigate due to my inexperience with these. It showed that there is not any purpose in implementing these without knowledge in using them. As a teacher, I can scaffold their learning to create, desired outcomes, when I know how and why the use of digital technology. The concept of scaffolding is what Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976) are essential for developing fluency. (Niessen 2015)
Another critical part of teaching digital technology is knowing your digital footprint and help students learn about theirs. As a teacher, being aware of what social media I use and knowing what my image is out in the online world is essential for working in the education industry. “Our identity is also built by how and when we show ourselves online, what we do who connect with, how often and what for” (Lizenberg, pg4,2013). Teachers are careful with the way they present themselves at school; the same consideration is needed for their online identity.
When developing an online identity, it requires learning how to be safe in addition to being aware of cyberbullying. There is a dark side to all the new technology, because of the easy access and ability to be anonymous cyberbullying has emerged. Prevention for cyberbullying is education; therefore, my role as an educator is to ensure the students are being safe and learn about cyberbullying.