Digital Blog Post #B

Digital Blog Post #A - Chapter 1

After reading Chapter 1 in the required textbook, choose at least three distinct concepts within the chapter that you want to further explore and reflect upon. You will write your reflections on your newly created blog.

You will be using many tools in the future, but for this first digital badge, you will just need to create the blog and your first post. On this first post, you also need to add:

1. at least one hyperlink and
2. one relevant embedded video as your digital tool!
3. *optional* for advanced bloggers only this first blog post! - add a Creative Commons licensed image with proper attribution

The first concept in this chapter that I found both useful and interesting was Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). We live in a world where technology is rapidly advancing; everyone is constantly on their smart phones, modern day two year old children are even able to manipulate iPads! Because of our advancing technological usage, educators need to be able to keep up and keep their teaching methods relevant to today's students. I believe that using technology as a teaching tool will help keep students be much more engaged. If students have an interest in what they are doing, and can find it relatable in some way to their lives, they are much more likely to retain the information they are being taught. When I become an educator, I really want to make sure that on top of having subject knowledge necessary to teach, that I am able to combine pedagogical knowledge, and technological knowledge to ensure that my students are absorbing information as efficiently as possible. 

The video below is a wonderful example of TPACK being used in a real classroom. 

The second concept that I found interesting were some of the statistics about children using technology at young ages. On page 3, the book state that "By 2010, over half of U.S. children under age 5 were using some type of electronic learning toy and watching nearly four hours of television every day. By the time these youngsters entered second grade, about 70% played video games and used the internet on a daily basis." However, a more recent article called Children using internet from age of three, study finds, states that "Children spend twice as long online as their parents think they do and start using the internet at the average age of  three...". Children are now literally born into technology, and that just means that using technology as a tool for teaching is going to be essential for students to learn, more than ever before.

The third concept that appealed to me was having a technology-based learning environment. I absolutely love the idea of having being able to keep in contact with students even after the school day is over, in a way that would be appealing to them. Written homework assignments can get boring, but because children are much more interested in anything that is technology-based, having homework assignments be interactive computer exercises would be much more engaging for students. Incorporating online video clips and things of that nature would make it even more fun for students as well!

Overall, I learned quite a bit from this first chapter and I am excited to explore this technology as the semester continues!