Introduction
About Me
I come from a big, Irish/Mexican family; being the middle of six. I have my three younger brothers to thank for finding my passion of teaching young children. I studied Early Childhood Education in undergrad and have taught kindergarten for the past seven years in the South Loop, Chicago. While wrapping up my masters, I am working at a college-level for students with disabilities.
My History with Tech
Being a millennial, technology has been a dominating force since I have been in middle school. It started with me making my social-media footprint with MySpace and an AIM screen-name. Of course, it did not stop there and technology has made its way into my life and set up camp. Coming from my specific generation, going through a remote work-inducing pandemic, and relying on Google to fulfill my 'instant gratification' complex as far as finding out answers or information - I definitely fall into the category of technology using me.
However, I began to use technology to my advantage in undergrad as I minored in Graphic Design. I went into college unsure of how to keep my love for drawing in a professional and practical way but soon found myself intrigued with creating art using technology. The more classes I took, the better I got. The better I got, the more pleasure I got from this new art form. Below, I have added a few picture of some work I created during my college Graphic Design classes. Even though I loved creating art during my college career, I never moved forward with it in a professional way.
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| Images from undergraduate Graphic Design courses |
Few things have changed in the tech realm since I have been teaching. Student resources in my classrooms have always been iPads with chosen apps and a projector with white screen. How I use technology in the classroom is finding engaging and content-related apps for student's iPads, using educational websites like epic! and BrainPOP Jr. during lessons, and age appropriate brain-break videos. Outside of teaching, I use Google Docs to lesson plan with my kindergarten team and Zoom to meet for professional development or staff meetings.
One major change with technology I have noticed during my career is with assessments. In the beginning, assessments were done with printed documents for both the student and teacher to use. Just a few years later, assessments were conducted, timed, and graded using iPads and laptops.
Moving Forward
As I start my Technology in Education journey, I am hoping to shift the dynamic of how I can use technology in a more productive way. As I mentioned before, I worked at a school in the South Loop that was private and had plenty of resources. Middle school had 1:1 Chrome books and the classes under had a library of tech to choose from that was a 2:1 ratio. As part of the school culture, technology was intentionally limited and only used when content could not be taught best using another medium. Although I do agree with the school's saying of, 'People should be more interesting than technology!,' I think using technology is not a matter of being interesting but of appropriate exposure. Long story short, I am taking these courses to bridge my everyday dependence on technology and professional limitation on technology. I know I can find a healthy balance on the spectrum that lies between those two extremes.
Great to meet you, Erin. I enjoyed reading about your "why" and seeing some of your graphic design work. The programs available today for those interested in creating digital art are incredible. I'm hoping this course will help answer some of your questions or at the very least, generate some new ones! Looking forward to learning alongside you.
ReplyDeleteHey Erin, as a fellow Kindergarten teacher I totally agree we need to balance exposure. We also use STEP from University of Chicago to assess students reading and foundational skills and it recently has become an all online front facing platform. definitely a change from F&P BAS paper pencil! Thank you for reminding us all about our why as we continue through classes and think about how we can move forward in education and provide equity within our classroom and students.
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