This week we began discussing the dark and light sides of technology. There are things I like about living in a technology saturated society, there are also aspects that I don’t like and am weary of; however, I have never really considered the dark/light perspective. It prompted me to think about how I represent technology in my day to day teaching. As we are just embarking on this journey, I thought I would reflect on where I am on each side in my teaching practice.
Let’s start with the dark side…
What happens on social media outside of school significantly impacted how our class time would go this year. I had a small group that I saw daily and much of what we ended up spending our discussion time on was problem solving things that had happened somehow through social media. While I don’t mind doing this and part of my job is to help my students navigate the unwritten rules around them, it took away from a lot of other things that were just as valuable and it never felt like we were getting ahead of progressing with the issue. I had students that were getting themselves into quite difficult situations, some of which were difficult for me as an adult to navigate.
The documentary In Real Life that we watched this week highlighted some of the darkest sides of the internet and technology. Although I was not overly surprised by the content, it was still concerning. The film looked at extreme situations; it made me wonder how those individuals ended up in that place so far in and if and how they could ever recover from that. As we saw, their technology/internet usage and habits ruled their lives and took up so much space in their minds that it would be hard for them to live outside of that and enjoy any type of balanced and healthy life.
I know that technology can support students in being more creative, efficient, and many other things; however, I have also noticed that this is not natural for most of my students. There were some things I just assumed they would be able to do as digital natives without much support (such as looking up operating hours of a business, menus, or how much a swim is). Furthermore, I found that most of my students fatigued easily if they could not find an immediate answer or they just took the first thing that kind of looked like an answer to my question and out assume that was correct (without thinking about if it was a reasonable answer).
Most of the students I work with have difficulty with understanding boundaries in person, and online just complicates things even more. Even though they often feel “safer” communicating online, they can get themselves into some difficult situations pretty quickly. Because of this, we often discuss appropriate uses of technology, but thinking about it now, we need to do some more work on appropriate communication, and how to handle questionable situations. We use Garcia Winners Social Thinking terms “expected and unexpected” a lot and discuss the expected and unexpected behaviours for various situations and how that impacts those around us. I think I should work on expanding that to outside of face to face interaction/scenarios. (Garcia Winner, 2015)
After some thought on just some of the issues on the dark side, I think that going forward I should do more to promote safe and healthy use of technology. Though I think discussions are important, there have been some cases where students still are not getting it. I think broadening how we address technology to include time to practice and use technology in different positive ways, as well as working on strategies for healthy habits for each individual.
Now for the light side!
With all that said about the dark side, there are actually ways I represent the light side in my teaching practice.
Assistive Technology (iPads, Chomebooks, Read and Write extension) is the first thing that comes to mind on the light side. Though I usually require students to keep their personal devices away while they are working with me or in my room, they have access to whatever educational technology that they need.
I use technology to communicate and connect with specialists that work with my students in varying capacities. Though the students aren’t involved in this directly, they benefit from consultations on their behalf. Also, technology provides access to a wealth of resources to use in the LC. The useful programs, apps, resources, videos, curriculum, etc. are endless (sometimes overwhelming!). Another thing we work on often is using technology to find information and to share their information/learning/knowledge.
As much as I would like to say I am currently at 50:50, a more accurate ratio would probably be 60:40. What ratio are you currently representing in terms of dark/light in your teaching? Where do you hope to be?
References
Garcia Winner, M. (2015, January 20). Social Thinking Articles. Retrieved July 07, 2018, from https://www.socialthinking.com/Articles name=Why%20do%20We%20Use%20the%20Expected-Unexpected%20Social%20Thinking%20Vocabulary%20Article
Kidron, B. (Director). (2014). InRealLife [Video file]. United Kingdom: Dogwoof. Retrieved July 06, 2018, from https://cbu.kanopy.com/video/inreallife
Let’s start with the dark side…
What happens on social media outside of school significantly impacted how our class time would go this year. I had a small group that I saw daily and much of what we ended up spending our discussion time on was problem solving things that had happened somehow through social media. While I don’t mind doing this and part of my job is to help my students navigate the unwritten rules around them, it took away from a lot of other things that were just as valuable and it never felt like we were getting ahead of progressing with the issue. I had students that were getting themselves into quite difficult situations, some of which were difficult for me as an adult to navigate.
The documentary In Real Life that we watched this week highlighted some of the darkest sides of the internet and technology. Although I was not overly surprised by the content, it was still concerning. The film looked at extreme situations; it made me wonder how those individuals ended up in that place so far in and if and how they could ever recover from that. As we saw, their technology/internet usage and habits ruled their lives and took up so much space in their minds that it would be hard for them to live outside of that and enjoy any type of balanced and healthy life.
I know that technology can support students in being more creative, efficient, and many other things; however, I have also noticed that this is not natural for most of my students. There were some things I just assumed they would be able to do as digital natives without much support (such as looking up operating hours of a business, menus, or how much a swim is). Furthermore, I found that most of my students fatigued easily if they could not find an immediate answer or they just took the first thing that kind of looked like an answer to my question and out assume that was correct (without thinking about if it was a reasonable answer).
Most of the students I work with have difficulty with understanding boundaries in person, and online just complicates things even more. Even though they often feel “safer” communicating online, they can get themselves into some difficult situations pretty quickly. Because of this, we often discuss appropriate uses of technology, but thinking about it now, we need to do some more work on appropriate communication, and how to handle questionable situations. We use Garcia Winners Social Thinking terms “expected and unexpected” a lot and discuss the expected and unexpected behaviours for various situations and how that impacts those around us. I think I should work on expanding that to outside of face to face interaction/scenarios. (Garcia Winner, 2015)
After some thought on just some of the issues on the dark side, I think that going forward I should do more to promote safe and healthy use of technology. Though I think discussions are important, there have been some cases where students still are not getting it. I think broadening how we address technology to include time to practice and use technology in different positive ways, as well as working on strategies for healthy habits for each individual.
Now for the light side!
With all that said about the dark side, there are actually ways I represent the light side in my teaching practice.
Assistive Technology (iPads, Chomebooks, Read and Write extension) is the first thing that comes to mind on the light side. Though I usually require students to keep their personal devices away while they are working with me or in my room, they have access to whatever educational technology that they need.
I use technology to communicate and connect with specialists that work with my students in varying capacities. Though the students aren’t involved in this directly, they benefit from consultations on their behalf. Also, technology provides access to a wealth of resources to use in the LC. The useful programs, apps, resources, videos, curriculum, etc. are endless (sometimes overwhelming!). Another thing we work on often is using technology to find information and to share their information/learning/knowledge.
References
Garcia Winner, M. (2015, January 20). Social Thinking Articles. Retrieved July 07, 2018, from https://www.socialthinking.com/Articles name=Why%20do%20We%20Use%20the%20Expected-Unexpected%20Social%20Thinking%20Vocabulary%20Article
Kidron, B. (Director). (2014). InRealLife [Video file]. United Kingdom: Dogwoof. Retrieved July 06, 2018, from https://cbu.kanopy.com/video/inreallife
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