I am an immigrant, a digital immigrant that is. Let me tell you about technology when I first entered the classroom as a teacher… you know that wonderful smell of those purple ditto sheets? Yes, I was “trained” how to use one of those machines to make copies. Grades? I kept a paper and pencil grade book. Once I’d entered all of my grades, I wasn’t done yet. I’d pull out my calculator and start adding. Still not done yet. Then I’d fill in bubbles on a scan sheet to pencil in an average and a conduct grade for each child I taught. You’d think I would have been ecstatic when we started using a digital gradebook, wouldn’t you? Believe it or not, I was a little fearful!
Needed to communicate with another teacher while I had a roomful of children? Thank goodness for those trustworthy children eager to hand deliver my hand-written note. Then, one day, I found out I would have to attend an email class during my conference period. Yes, I was “trained” how to send an email to a colleague. What doors that opened. Imagine my delight when I typed in my recipient’s last name and they popped into my send box! What a door that opened for me. (And what a door that slammed shut for those willing delivery students!)
I moved gracefully (at least I convinced myself it was graceful) through about twenty years of keeping up with technology as a middle school language arts teacher. Then I retired. Believe it or not, one thing I worried about was being left behind in the ever-changing technology dust. The year my former district started using google classroom, I thought that was it. I would no longer be able to consider myself an assimilated digital immigrant. Luckily, I was still doing some part-time intervention work, and also to my luck, my friends who were still in the classroom gently pushed me to utilize google classroom and understand the benefits of shared google docs. I was still a successful digital immigrant. (Even working with digital natives, I was able to keep my digital immigrant status a secret!)
Now, I’m about to be left in the dust again. In my former district, teachers will have to successfully navigate both face to face and distance learning AT THE SAME TIME! WHAT??? My shock isn’t that they won’t be able to do it. Because I KNOW they will. That’s what teachers do; when presented with something that seems undoable, they do it. They not only do it, but they do it well. Does it seem hard at first? Absolutely. This is coming from the teacher who thought learning to use email during her conference period was a daunting task. My point is, while it seems hard right now, I know before long, these awesome teachers will be doing this as if they’ve done it their entire teaching career. Because that’s what teachers do.
So now my question is, even though I’m retired, how can I manage to keep up with teaching with technology today? I’m sure some awesome teacher will keep my in the loop! (And out of the dust!)
Leave a Reply