Hello
Hello, my name is AJ and I'm writing from EME2040, Introduction to Educational Technology. I am pursuing a major in English Education with a minor in Art History. I would like to travel and teach English as a foreign language. I think I may eventually go back to school to pursue a graduate degree in Art History and hopefully work as a consultant for media or a curator for a museum. I live in Tallahassee but I was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, where I lived for most of my early childhood.
As a student in the current age of technology, nearly every class I've been in in America has had some sort of technological component. This can be as simple as a projector to show the teacher's work more clearly, all the way to classes that are taught entirely with slideshows, videos, interactive work on websites, and sometimes fully online lectures. In middle school, when I was first exposed to computers being in the classroom, I had to learn quickly in order to keep up with the other students who seemed to have grown up with them. I got a decent grasp on it and by now with almost a full year of fully online courses due to quarantine, I feel pretty confident in using the software and machines necessary for schoolwork. Now it is time to apply that to the other perspective, being a teacher.
Before quarantine, it was very easy for me to start study groups in each of my classes, even if just to ask each other clarification on assignments and deadlines. This was my primary source of resources in my personal learning network, along with existing friends I have that had taken the course previously, or at least knew the subject matter better than I did. In quarantine, I have still managed to make group chats and use my peers in my personal learning network, but my primary resources have shifted onto youtube videos where teachers have discussed the topics that I'm struggling with. I also have reached out to my teachers much more in office hours than I used to, because I feel that a one on one discussion teaches me much better than a very impersonal online lecture.
Thank you for reading, and I hope we have a good semester together,
AJ
Hey AJ! I think it's really cool that you're from Greece. I have always wanted to go there! If you don't mind me asking how many years did you live there? I can agree with you about the personal learning networks during quarantine being group chats and stuff rather than study groups. I'm glad that we have the opportunity to make group chats because knowing other people are feeling the same as you are about an assignment or project is very comforting. I, too, hope you have a good semester!
ReplyDeleteHey, I lived in Greece until I was seven, and from there we frequently spent part of the year in Greece until I was 12 and my family settled down in America. Greece is wonderful to visit, so I highly recommend it whenever it's safe to travel again! Making connections during quarantine has been so difficult, so keeping a stable PLN has definitely been harder in these circumstances.
DeleteHey AJ, I can most certainly agree with you that technology is extremely important in America. I say this because technology is the way of life, the way of the present, and the way of the future. Technology allows us to do so much and I will forever be grateful for all the advancements technology has provided.
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