Will the younger generation keep up with technology forever?

I am confident that I am well versed with technology at this point in my life.  I cannot say the same for my grandparents.  My grandparents on both sides of my family both struggle with technology in their daily lives.  My grandma does not have wifi, a laptop, or even a cell phone.  She is not interested in it at all.  My other grandparents have an early 2000s computer and a tablet, but do not have the knowledge to use it at an advanced level.  I am sure this is also the case in many families around the world.  I want to answer the question: Will the younger generation today stay up to date with technology for the rest of their lives?

Technology is advancing at an exponential rate.  With the pandemic, technology has changed forever.  Not only has it advanced during this time, but new forms of technology have also been developed.  No one knows what technology is going to look like in 20+ years.  

I have had teachers that used technology to enhance their class, but I have also had teachers that do not want to use technology at all in the classroom.  Usually the teachers that do not want to use technology are the ones that are in the later stages of their careers.  I think this is because they are used to the way they teach.  Soon many of my classmates and I will start our teaching careers.  We will all be able to use the technology that we have learned in class, but will we evolve with the technology in our classrooms once new technology arrives?  Will we be forced to change our classrooms as technology changes?  I want to think that I will be able to keep learning new technology, but the older generation says otherwise.  Many older teachers are choosing not to evolve with the times and implement technology in their daily classrooms.  This has changed because of COVID-19, but once the virus is controlled we may see more teachers going back to their old habits.  I know many teachers that prefer using a pencil and paper.    

Once my generation of teachers experiences new technology, will we be willing to learn something new and implement it into our classrooms during the later stages of our careers?  I hope that if this technology enhances learning, my generation will learn it and use it.  I think that teachers need to be willing to give up what they know and learn something new for a better learning experience.  Throughout my education some teachers have not changed in many years.  I want the new generation of teachers to learn new technology and never “settle” in the way they teach.  We need to be open to learning a new program or piece of technology even if we are 50-60 years old.  We need to change the stereotypical “older” teacher.  Also, since our students will most likely be using this technology we, as teachers, need to use it as well.  If we can understand the technology students already know, then both sides can create positive learning in the classroom.

Some older teachers have implemented technology in their classrooms pre-COVID, but not all of them have.  I want my generation of teachers to change their classrooms for their entire teaching careers as long as it enhances our students’ ability to learn.  Again, I think my generation of teachers needs to change with the times and not fall into old habits.  As the world’s educational technology changes, teachers need to change as well.

Use Technology to Understand Other Technology

 

Recently, I had the opportunity to use and work with MATLAB for the first time.  MATLAB is a programming platform that is used to help aid in complex calculations that would otherwise be difficult to do by hand or some other method.  Because this was the first time that I had ever used this software, I was a little concerned on how well I would be able to navigate through the program in order to complete the tasks that my Linear Algebra professor had assigned us.

The tasks that were asked of us were to perform different types of elementary row operations on a specific matrix in order to achieve the outcome desired.  First, we needed to define a matrix.  I should probably mention that, during class the day before, our professor went over some basics of MATLAB.  In this case, I was able to define the matrix rather easily because that was one of the things we went over in class.  Then, we were supposed to perform different operations on this matrix in order to manipulate it.  This turned into a bit of a challenge for me, especially when it came to the last task where we were supposed to create a for loop that would sift through the matrix, find a row that contained all zeros, and replace that row with the numbers 2020 and 2021.  At first glance, I got pretty discouraged because that seemed like a very complicated feat, for me anyway.

After being stumped for a good while, I was enlightened by this insane idea that popped in my head.  Technology can help with understanding other technology.  Crazy right.  Who would have ever thought that this would be true?  Sure enough, it is.  Knowing this, I will say that Google was my friend in trying to figure out some of the steps that I had no idea on how to complete.  However, looking up something on the internet is not always as easy as it seems nor was it for me in this situation.  Though, in the end, I was able to figure it out.

Since I have taken a couple of computer science classes here at SDSU, some of this programming stuff was a little familiar to me.  Even further yet, while taking these two classes, I developed a small appreciation, if you will, for programming because of the way I feel after being stumped and then figuring out a way around a certain problem that pops up.   Anyway, I think that this experience may have aided me when I was looking up how to do things on Google because I understood what needed to happen, I just was not sure on how to do it in MATLAB necessarily.  Not only that but I have experience with what it is like to come to a halt in the process and the feeling of what it is like after you get past that obstacle.  In this way, I feel like that was another driving factor for me while working on this assignment.  However, others with no experience may have found it difficult to look up how to do certain things or even struggle with having the drive to continue after coming to a spot in a problem that seems impossible to figure out.  But I’m here to tell you to not hang your head or say you will not find a way because more times than not you will figure out the steps necessary to get through it.  Oh, and by the way, a helpful tip that I would also suggest is to not forget to use technology as another resource to help you understand other technology when you need to.

When Technology is Frustrating

Last Tuesday at the beginning of the STEM Technology course, I tried to display the computer on the screen. I hit all the needed buttons and I tried other things, but it wouldn't work. Finally I emailed Classroom Technology Services and they came over and fixed it. Even better--the tech showed me what was wrong so I could look for that issue if I encountered the same problem in the future.

On Wednesday I am in the same classroom for History of Math and I went to display the document camera on Zoom.  I followed all the steps that I used last semester, switched cameras multiple times, and it didn't work. After class I asked Dr. Larson if she had the same issue that morning in her class, and she did. I think it may have worked on Friday, but I am not convinced.

So this is a blogpost for the technology class--why would I be negative in this post? I am not trying to be negative, but rather I am being realistic. Technology isn't going to work perfectly every time we use it so we have to have a backup plan for everything. As a teacher, we must not only learn how to use technology, we have to learn how to troubleshoot problems, and we have to have a backup plan. Don't let anyone tell you that teaching is an easy job--it is not. Those that say it is have no idea what we do every day and frequently they don't respect what we do. So the first thing you need to do to prepare for a career as a teacher is to get thick skin.