Hi! My name is Samantha Lopez and I am an English subject matter major in my senior year. Throughout my school years, I was fortunate to have had a few teachers who not only imparted knowledge but also provided guidance, support, and advice beyond academics. My interest in becoming a teacher stems from those teachers and their impact on me. I look forward to teaching high school and inspiring young people to achieve things they never thought they were capable of.
Media technology is constantly evolving and I believe it will have a huge role in teaching students. When students are taught how to effectively use media technology, it can become a powerful tool that enhances their learning experiences and development. However, I believe media technology should be introduced to students starting in third grade and continue through twelfth grade. I have witnessed both effective and ineffective uses of media technology as a teacher assistant. I worked for LAUSD and AUSD, supporting grades from ETK to fifth grade and sixth grade to eighth grade. In some classes the younger students struggled to use their iPads and some used their iPads for non-educational purposes. I think third grade is a good time to start teaching students how to search for ebooks, which gives students access to more genres and authors beyond the school library. As students begin writing longer paragraphs or essays they can search and use scholarly articles, blogs, online journals etc. to gather ideas or supporting details. Writing and reading skills can improve with tools that help correct grammar mistakes, search for definitions, and provide students with pronunciations.
My use of media technology began in high school. I was taught to create Google Docs for all my writing assignments because it was a reliable platform where my work wouldn’t get lost. For me this was helpful and I learned a lot. Google Docs made it easier to write papers in MLA format and create a works cited page. It also helped with grammar mistakes and allowed me to share my work with the teacher and peers for feedback. Receiving various types of feedback helped me gain different perspectives. This experience prepared me for future writing assignments. Having Google Docs is like having old journal entries to look back on and learn from my past writing.
Hello there Samantha, nice to meet you! It's really great to hear that the teachers in your life helped and inspired you to become a teacher as well and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. I agree that as time progresses media technology will have a bigger and bigger role in teaching environments as it is inevitable, so it is prudent of teachers to prepare for that. Your idea to introduce media technology in the 3rd grade all the way to the 12th grade is a good step in such a preparation, it is better for experienced teachers to introduce children to media technology than for students to discover it on their own and be likely exposed to the dangerous that media technology harbors. I believe that a healthy and guided exposure to media technology by parents and teachers will probably solve a lot of problems children usually have regarding early exposure to media technology like the internet. Thank you for your insights Samantha, I find them very agreeable with my own views regarding media technology. I wish you a great day!
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