The first concept that I want to reflect upon is the term digital childhood. I believe that this term says more about the parents of these children than the actual children. Digital parenthood is a better term! It is very interesting that parenting styles have changed so drastically with the passing of time and growth of technology. Rather than "Go outside and play until dinner time." children now hear "Go spend an hour on the iPad until dinner is ready." I am in charge of the preschool at my church on Sunday mornings, and once a month I am in there during the entire service as a teacher. This past Sunday I was co-teaching with somebody, and since only two children were in the room at the time she sat them down at the table with her iPad and an interactive bible app set up on it. These boys were only two years old, yet figured out quite quickly how to work the app. This is amazing to me, because they show such a level of understanding of what things do on that screen, that an arrow means next page, which icon means chapter, that they can efficiently entertain themselves with the iPad without even having the knowledge of how to read. They are going to grow up with the natural knowledge of how to work a screen, which brings me to the next concept that I am going to discuss.
If someone were to ask me at any point how I would describe my "digital identity", I would not know how. My entire life has built up my digital identity, how can I separate my skills into categories like that? I don't describe my knowledge of how to drive a car or how to cook and clean as my "real life identity", those are just things that I know how to do and they make my day more efficient. I believe the same of the things I know concerning technology. I use my iPad and iPhone as calendars, cameras, to-do lists, couponing resources, homework aids, books, journals, entertainment, communication, and current event sources, among many other things. How can I label these things I do naturally as a part of a technologically efficient life as my "digital identity"? The children who grow up in a "digital childhood" will become the norm, and in two or three generations, maybe textbooks will consider it just a "childhood" again. No one will question their "digital identity", because it will soon just be considered a few out of the many things that they know how to do in life.
Even though my life revolves around technology, as a student right now I get overwhelmed when thinking about teaching a classroom of students, let alone how to incorporate technology into my lesson plans. However, I know that when the time comes it will come naturally to me, just like it is natural to download an app to help me budget my money or my time. While I was reading, I came across a quote that made me relax a little on the inside. "What can teachers and students do with technology that cannot be done without it?" I realized that first learning the content, then how to teach it, and then incorporating the use of technology is all it takes. Asking yourself after making the lesson plan "how can this be better with the use of technology?" can mean a whole world of difference in teaching styles. This also connects to the Teaching Pedagogical Content Knowledge concept in the first chapter. First content, then teaching, then technology.
The textbook makes this topic of technology seem like it's a new thing that's happening. While that may be true for people like my dad who has lived through the invention of the microwave and the first video game all the way through now with the iPhone and the ability to carry a computer in your pocket, it's nothing new to me, who at 19 has lived with this technology my entire life and have always intended to use it daily in productive manners. This class is definitely going to be interesting!
Textbook - Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Writing Tools. (n.d.). Retrieved August 28, 2014. http://owt.wikispaces.com/Writing+Tools
