Entry #10: Bless, Address, Press

 Out of my classmate's blogs that I have read this week, one particular blog that I wish to address is Sam D's blog for Entry #7. In her blog post, she speaks on behalf of technology and the impact it has on our student's in the classroom and this is a topic that I would love to address. Only three sentences into her blog does she ask the question, "What does a classroom fully integrated with technology look and feel like?" In my classroom currently, I try to integrate as much technology as possible when requiring students to complete a reading assignment or a fun activity. For example, over the past few weeks, the student's in my class have been working on their inferencing skills and to start off their lesson, I had them "read" three images with no context, and on a Padlet, they had to post what they thought was going on in the picture; they had to tell me who was involved, where/when they were, and what was going on. Using one of Padlet's features, I set the images up so that students would leave a comment of some sort for each of the images, making it look like they were posting on social media. My students told me they enjoyed that activity and figuring out how to maneuver around Padlet. In addition, when we have 5 minutes at the end of class, I will have them play an interactive game called, Blooket. Similar to Kahoot, students have to answer questions as they pop up on the screen but with this website, they can battle each other similar to a video game set up. Having my students interact with both of these technology tools seems to increase their motivation to read and participate in the class, but like Sam mentions in her blog, it can become a hassle at some points.  

After experiencing all of the technology in my class however, I wonder if there ever comes a point where students are TOO immersed in technology. I have to agree that technology has become a helpful tool in schools for quick and easy access and can be a helpful motivator, but I wonder if, especially since the Pandemic, student's are exposed to their computers too often. I do think blogging like this in this format is helpful, but what about handwriting and keeping personal journals? Tompkins writes that, "Personal journals are most appropriate for...reluctant writers because once a students become fluent writers, they're ready for other types of journal writing" (2012, p. 110). Maybe pen to paper would be better as opposed to a blog format like this for those reluctant writers? I have always found, especially when I am having a difficult day, handwriting and pouring my thoughts on to a page is more meaningful than typing them on a computer. I seem to recall in middle school, I had to handwrite journals at the beginning of class and I thoroughly enjoyed it...I don't think my kids would be too happy with me if I made them handwrite everything though! 😅