As far as the first two pieces of text go, from the NCTE and from Radical Eyes, there is a connection being made between what we as teachers need to be doing for our students, rather than teaching them to get good grades on tests for our benefit. Both pieces spent a lot of time talking about how important and useful it can be to have some sort of handheld device or digital media at your fingertips. And yet, I think that so many people still try and stifle the use of these great resources for sake of keeping tradition. In my high school experiences our teachers used projectors, and never went out of their way to use other technologies what-so-ever. Was that because they were not properly taught how to go about using them? Or was it simply laziness and old habit that kept them from reforming their lessons to include some sort of digital aspects?
Now, my sister just graduated from High School last year. Her class had their own one-to-one Chromebook devices and were encouraged to use all sorts of new technologies whether they were in the classroom or at home. While of course there are some downfalls to having these options, like students texting or getting distracted occasionally, there are even more positives to having these devices. For the first two pieces of text I mentioned before these seemed to be the "golden nuggets" so to speak of the texts.
As for the other text, by Julia Cameron, I felt a little more disconnected to it. Which is funny of course, because it was meant to be inspiration and, all that jazz. I find that I personally want to enjoy writing for pleasure, but I find it more of a chore than anything. I enjoy writing for school, mostly because I am given a task and I need to complete it to receive a grade and so-on. I understand what Julia is saying about how everyone can be a writer, I have no doubt that that isn't true. I personally just find that I really struggle with it. I don't actually like writing with pen and paper either. I find that because I am left-handed it tends to hurt and my hand cramps and I just end up giving up. I do wonder if I started to write more in the form of typing it out like this I would have an easier time of it. I feel that the joy and emotion that Julia has for writing is something that I have for reading instead, so I do understand what the feels like.
All in all, I hope that this blog helps me to explore the writer in myself, and maybe I will get more out of it than I know in the long run. All I know is that I can't wait to find out.
Danielle, I like that you brought up your own high school experience, mine was fairly similar. It almost felt like a treat any time a teacher decided to use the projector in class that day, almost like a much needed break from pencil pushing. The rare times we were allowed to pull out our phones was related to class and then quickly put away. I think laziness and not knowing are equal parts in the equation, if we're learning about incorporating technology in effective ways, didn't they? Of course, I'm thinking in terms of you and I, where we had access to these technologies. I understand, that teaching 50 years ago wouldn't come close to having that kind of access, but figuring out why teachers haven't been reforming their lessons is an important thing to look at.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, our high school experiences were incredibly similar. The days that the projector was brought out were the days that I found myself able to sit back and relax, relying on just taking notes and writing out "fill-in-the-blank" note sheets that I would then just put away in my binder to use as study guides in the future. I feel like the only time we really began to use technology to spread our writing wings was when I hit senior year and technology was really starting to take a high importance within schools. I had a creative writing class that relied on typing or handwriting novels during NaNoWriMo, creating a website to promote our finished novels, and creating journals that contained at least one piece written by each member of our class. Other than that, I never felt like technology was really used in classrooms to encourage our writing.
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