A Foreigner Among the Texters and Twitterers

I'm writing this blog in response to Howard Rheingold's "Using Social Media to Teach Social Media," which we read for class. This article drew me in right away, because the first few lines resembled thoughts I've been having many times as of late. It talked about how today's students are "digital natives," how they have never known a world without the internet and a million technologies. Rheingold stated that "[Students] know the Internet not as a transformative new technology,but as a fixture in their environment" (25).

As I said this- the fact that these students did not grow up in the world I grew up in- is something I have thought a lot about it. It scares me to think that children today don't know a world WITHOUT the internet or without cell phones. They don't understand being stranded in your car, in the middle of nowhere, desperately wishing you knew where the closest pay phone was. That's a good thing. They won't ever have to wonder about what happened to so-and-so from third grade- they'll be in touch with his life through Facebook. That's another good thing.

Still, though, I can't help but be happy about the fact that I've lived in a world without modern technologies. Maybe it's just some weird "roughing it" pride thing, but I'm glad I've looked through books to find material for a project or paper, instead of just typing a phrase or two into Google. I'm glad I've been able to go on vacation and be impossible to get ahold of, because I didn't have a cell phone and people couldn't just do a quick search to find out the number of the hotel I was staying in. I'm even glad I wracked up a huge phone bill as a kid and got in trouble, thanks to antiquated long distance and the charge-you-every-time three-way calling.

It scares me to think that the students I teach have such a different life experience than me. So many times, they are more adept at technology than I am, and the roles reverse. They become the teacher, and I the student. I almost feel like a foreigner among these texters and twitterers sometimes, but I'm trying.

I'm working on accepting the fact that they know more than me when it comes to technology (and a million other things), and I'm working on letting them teach me. I think the students are the best ones to show us how we can use different technologies in the classroom, including social media.

Trying to Keep Up

I am slowly working away at my part on GLIP, and though I've gotten a lot done, I will say that I am definitely happy about the extended time that we have to work on this part of the project. I feel so overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done for it. In addition to work for the project, I have a job, student teaching duties, and all my preparations for study abroad in China. I am feeling very overwhelmed, hectic, and crazed, and I think that's a good metaphor for how I sometimes feel in our increasingly technological world.

I feel like today, thanks in large part to the internet and all the technologies we have, we are expected to do a million things at once. I see my students "secretly" texting all the time. They are always connected, always wired in. They are on their phones while listening in class. They are listening to music while they work...my school actually has you sign a "listening contract" that allows you, even encourages you, to do this.

As adults, we are all about multi-tasking too. We send emails from work. We post to our Facebooks and Twitters while we make dinner. We commit the ultimate sin and text while we drive.

I can't help but feel that the demands that are placed on us by technology, technology which is supposed to make our lives easier, cause us to give everything about 50%. Nothing gets our full attention anymore. We don't just concentrate on one thing at a time and give it our best shot. We are jacks of all trades, masters of none in a sense.

Maybe I'm just having trouble becoming a grown up in today's world, or maybe I'm onto something. I don't have any solutions or anything to say other than I find it challenging to live in this place, and I feel that in a lot of ways, technology is actually decreasing, rather than increasing, our quality of life.

The Power of Learning Through Games

My favorite article from this week's reading was Joel Foreman's "Game Based Learning." In particular, one quote from the article stood out for me. The quote is as follows: "Games greatest potential is that they’re worlds in a box. They allow you to create a world that somebody can be in
and take on an identity. People learn most deeply when they take on a new identity that they really want."

I couldn't agree with this quote more. I happen to believe that just about all learning takes place through play. Think about small children. They play pretend all the time. They pretend to be parents to their dolls. They play house and office, usually mimicking their parents. They pretend to cook. They pretend to be doctors. They pretend anything and everything. These games allow them to try out different roles, and they learn while they play those roles. The most important thing they learn is whether or not a certain role is "fun" for them, whether or not it fits them. I played school like it was going out of style, and now here I am, studying to be a teacher. I enjoyed that play, and now I enjoy the real thing.

In my student teaching, I have noticed that a lot of times students "play" without realizing it. They won't know how to answer a question or to do an assignment, so they make up an answer and deliver it in a funny voice. One example is a tenth grader I have, we'll call him R. R likes to put on a snooty British voice and use big words to answer questions about the reading. Half the time, when he's playing in this way, he says things that are profound. It's almost like the role gives him the courage to say the things that he really thinks, without fear of embarrassment.

And, as adults, don't we all feel like we're playing sometimes? I know, most of the time, I feel like I'm just pretending to be a grown up. When tasks just feel too big or overwhelming, I pretend to be more confident and more capable than I really am. Usually, the job gets done, and I learn things in the process.

Since playing seems to be such a natural way of learning, I am all for encouraging play in the classroom. It, like reading, is an excellent way for students to live a thousand different lives, to imagine themselves in brand new situations and scenarios, and most importantly of all, to learn about the world around them and about themselves.

Online Learning Vs. Traditional Learning

As I completed this week's readings and then answered the discussion post on Moodle, I found that I had quite a lot to say on the differences between online and traditional educations. In fact, I rambled on for close to a thousand words, and still didn't feel finished. In my post, I cautioned about how easy it is for some people to become "passive participants," as Burke describes them, in online classes, and thus to not really get much out of the experience. I also talked about how hard it is for me and likely for others to take online classes as seriously as traditional classes.

What I didn't get to touch on, though, is why many of us become passive participants who just can't seem to take online classes seriously. This is something I have struggled with for a while, especially with my first online courses. I think I am getting better now, but I've still got some work to do.

My big problem is that the majority of online classes just seem to be lacking in real connections. They are all to often the "impersonal," "superficial," and "dehumanizing" classes mentioned in Rovai and Barnum's study. The thing is, I don't know if the classes really are all these things, but they sure feel that way to me.

My whole life I have been someone who thrives around others. In class, I have always loved assignments where I could work with others, or even just participating in discussions where we got to share our thoughts and feelings. People are how I learn. I find my voice and opinions through hearing the voices and opinions of others. So, when I find myself in an online class ,that connection feels like it is lacking.

Most teachers try to make up for that. They have us work together, though we usually just communicate via quick emails. They have us comment on each other's blogs, but it's still just an assignment that we have to do. Everything just feels like work, and connections rarely, if ever, feel authentic, at least to me. I guess I am just the kind of person who ultimately needs to do things the old fashioned way. I need to see people's faces when I talk to them. I need to laugh together, not type "lol." I feel, though, that my way is outdated, unappreciated, and inconvenient, and I also feel and fear that I'm being left behind because of it.

I am scared of a world in which we don't really communicate, except through email or text messages. I am scared of a world where real connections are the exception not the rule. I am scared of a world where we are all so self invovled that we spend hours and hours crafting the image we will portray through sites like Facebook. Yet, this is the world we live in, and it seems that if I don't step up and figure out a way to become a part of it, I will be antiquated at the age of twenty-six.

It's a scary thought, and one that I am dealing with every day. I hope I can find some common ground and learn to live in this increasingly technological society without losing too much of what makes me who I am.

Technology : Thriving Vs. Surviving

Before I took this class, I thought of myself as being fairly confident with my technological skills. After all, as a freelance writer, I use the computer for basically every aspect of my job. I perform research on the computer. I write the actual articles on the computer. I email my work or post it in the appropriate online places, etc. I guess I thought that being able to use the internet and basic computer programs made me technologically literate. Now, though, my eyes are being opened to all of the technological things I wasn't aware of before.

Podcasting is a great example. I thought, okay, this won't be a problem at all. I can have that done in no time flat. I'd never tried it before, but I felt confident in my abilities. Things did not, however, go according to plan. First of all, I didn't have the right sound devices to create a podcast on my computer. Then, I couldn't find a way to get them into the format I needed, because I was dealing with a computer that wouldn't allow me to download a new program. Whenever I encountered even the smallest of technical problems, I was at a real loss as to how to fix it. I learned that I generally expect various programs and shortcuts to do all of the work for me. When that is the case, I'm fine, but when things don't work the right way, I don't have a clue.

This led me to question whether I was thriving with technology or just merely surviving. To me, thriving means using technology to get things done and using it to make your life easier. It is similar to surviving with technology in this way, but the difference is that thrivers are confident in their abilities. They know how to deal with problems that pop up. If they don't know how to deal with a particular problem, they will figure it out. Unfortunately, my lack of confidence and my inability to fix issues makes me a mere survivor, not a thriver.

I think of my mom, who is neither a thriver nor a survivor. At 63, she is just someone who chooses to ignore technology. She has never sent an email. The only gaming system she's ever played (and poorly) was an old school Super Nintendo. She still has a VCR, and she has never owned a mobile phone. I bet though, at one time, she was a survivor too, in her own generation. But then, things got too hard, and she just gave up one day. In other words, I think it's easy to make the leap from technology survivor to being totally ignorant of modern technology. I don't want that to happen to me.

That is why I am going to, from this point forward, seize every opportunity I can to learn about new technologies and to increase my skills and comfort levels in dealing with existing technology. I want to make a leap forward--from survivor to thriver--instead of backwards. Though this class is challenging for me, I'm glad for the opportunity to become a more technologically skilled person and to learn how to put technology to good use in the classroom.