Digital Blog Post #A - Chapter 1

I found the opening of chapter one "today's students and technology" to be full of tons of information. Although the statistics mentioned did not surprise me, I did not expect the numbers to be so high or the ages to start so young. Kids as young as 12 have Facebook and other social media. The participation gap was something I had not realized was so big. It is also something I think will only keep growing and would be hard to fix. 

The concept "must have technologies for teaching" was very interesting to me and a little surprising. I knew technology was important for teaching but I did not realize how many technologies there were or that they could even be used in the classroom. In figure 1.3 I filled out the chart for my must have technologies. My answers included: digital media, online blended courses, interactive white boards, educational learning games, social networking, and digital textbooks. Technologies that are new to me that I had not heard of before was social bookmarking. I still do not quite understand this tool because to me favoriting a page or saving it to my desk top is the same thing. 

Lastly two concepts "technological pedagogical content knowledge" (TPACK) and "strategies for learning new technologies" go hand in hand in helping me with techniques and strategies to become a 21st century teacher in my future classroom. I really liked the TPACK concept because it made it easier to think about how to do all three at the same time. The other concept gave me detailed ideas on ways to learn new technologies. All of these will help me grow and become a better 21st century teacher.