Oh, our Changed World.

     What stood out to me from An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube was Michael Wesh saying, "It's a celebration of new forms of community - types of community that we've never really seen before, global connections transcending space and time. It's a celebration of new and unimaginable possibilities" (4:58).

    I don't know if it is hard to believe, but I rarely used tech before we moved to Canada. We honestly weren't fortunate enough, especially since our third-world country was not as advanced then as it is now. I only remember the DVDs, CDs, and developed photographs. My cousin and I were Michael Jackson fanatics, lazying around with the radio on, and then hours later, I was binging on classic Barbie movies. It was overwhelming to see so much technology in Canada. Before school, I would wait for the bus by watching "Bo on the Go!" and other shows on PBS Kids. I was gifted my first iPod when I was eight, and since then, I've received nine other devices. 

    One of the most memorable moments I've had with technology was of my cousins and I creating premade horror trailers on iMovie - for no purpose other than to pass the time during the family party. I only realized recently that this was an activity lots of people did. I saw this TikTok of someone sharing their iMovie trailer, and it had me reminiscing. After viewing Wesh's video, I thought, "Wow, we share these experiences even without knowing each other."

An example of the iMovie horror trailer (definitely not the one we made... but I can be persuaded).

    Of course, there are downsides to having such a technologically advanced world. We explored this in one of our earlier blogs. We also saw messages from the slide this week like "Television is dangerous because it is 'too spellbinding'" or "The Sony Walkman is making us antisocial." However, for the purpose of surviving and seeing our potential to advance, being tech-literate is an asset. The first and most important message I want in a tech classroom is community. I don't want to replace our in-person connections; I want technology to strengthen them. I also don't want to just follow trends; I want to see how appreciative and supportive we are of others' skills and talents. I hope that tech connects in my future classroom. 

    The statistics of students having digital footprints have increased a lot. We know this. As educators, we have to learn to keep up with the influences around the students. Personally, I hoped for this course to show me how to incorporate tech effectively in the classroom. I truly believe that outcomes have changed for the better because of tech in education. There are new ways to teach children because of technology.

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 26, 2023 at 8:27 PM

    I totally agree with you!!
    I guess I have never really thought about technology in third world countries until I was reading your blog, so thank you for giving me the ability to think about this. I think we need to put this in the back of our brains for students that do move to Canada and might be overwhelmed with the technology that they might not have access to back home. I think by doing this it gives us a really good foundation to teach students how to use and how not to use technology. I also agree with you that the statistics of digital footprints have increased a lot. It is actually quite scary to me at least. But I think the way we handle it as teachers can make it less scary by providing students adequate knowledge around these technology's and social media sites.

    - Alyssa Hildebrandt

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