Analysis

My biggest ‘Ah-ha’ moment for this course occurred while I was sitting down to interview the young lady in regards to her technology use. I was prepared to discuss her cell phone habits, perhaps chat and text. I was not prepared to launch into her MMO games, or how often she was on Skype and Tumblr. Somehow it became more of a conversation with a peer, as opposed to a conversation with a young pre-teen. Which shook my preconceptions up in a way that really needed to happen.

I was able to look back at, well, everything we had covered so far in this course, from blogs to affinity spaces, with a far more open mind. Younger children were using these tools, were visiting these spaces. These then were tools that we, as educators, could be adapting to our classrooms. And should be. The youth were already engaged with them- how then could we utilize that engagement.

I have already had some coursework in using social technologies in K-12 settings from my previous degree in library science. This served to further push me in the direction of being open in accepting what could be used in an educational context. The technology is only as good as the educator utilizing it- we cannot just pull the new and shiny tech into a room and expect it to revolutionize the learning experience. I will move forward in my studies to see just what I want to focus on leveraging. And how.