Blog Entry #1: Inquiry, ICT, and Me

My relationship with my PC could be categorized as love/hate. In my personal life, I have enjoyed burning DVDs of Muay Thai fights captured on my father’s DV camcorder. All my favorite music is backed up digitally on my computer and is organized to be synced with my IPod depending on my musical mood. Like most people these days, I surf the internet to find videos, information, pictures, and to check in on my favorite discussion forums. When these simple tasks are accomplished without glitches I love my PC. It opens up a world that isn’t accessible any other way. I am able to accomplish things quickly and with little effort. Times like these, I see my PC as a friend ready to lend a helping hand. As a student teacher, my PC helped me to engage students with short video clips, audio files, animations, and images. Embedding these in PowerPoint presentations allowed me to keep my eyes on the students and move freely about the room. At times, I enlisted the help of the school’s laptops or computers and had students surf the net to increase their understanding of a topic, to conduct research, complete virtual tours, and blog. On the Apple computers used by the schools I completed my practicum experiences in, easy-to-use programs such as IMovie, Garageband, and IWeb provided interesting ways for students to demonstrate their knowledge. Sure there were occasional snags, but with practice and familiarity these were reduced if not completely avoided. My PC was truly a valuable partner during my practicum experience.

But there is another, darker side to my PC. It is this darker side that torments me with erratic and unpredictable behavior, blindsiding me with messages of “ERROR! ERROR!” Fuelling my anger with frustrating questions I don’t comprehend, “Would you like to save as Scorm.1 or html?” I mean come on, speak English PC! My lack of basic knowledge makes any attempt at troubleshooting a futile endeavor. My only recourse is to repeat the process until it magically works! Sometimes, this plan of action does not work and it is these times that I hate my PC.

The biggest cause of frustration in my relationship with my PC is a lack of understanding. Generally, when I determine there is a program that might be useful I learn how to use it for my immediate purposes but never really feel as though I confidently understand what I am doing. As a result, when things do not run smoothly I feel as though I don’t know what to do next. I often consult relevant “help” functions with little success because the language of computer technology is foreign to me. Consequently, one of my goals is to learn the basic knowledge concerning different file types and how to convert them into more appropriate types when necessary. In relation to student inquiry, I would like to expand my familiarity with current technological applications that I can use in the classroom. Though I have already used many effective technologies during my student teaching experience, I would benefit greatly from an increased understanding of the technical aspects of these programs and applications.

Many of the questions I have pertaining to the use of technology in the classroom and specifically the ELA classroom will be generated by the experiences I have during our SIPS class. Specifically, I would like to discuss the appropriateness of certain practices with regards to copyright laws and school policies. I would also like to explore the possibilities of new ways to incorporate technologies being resisted by the school system (for example, cell phones and text messaging). Finally, the ultimate question I would like to begin to answer is - what impact is the use of computer technologies having on the development of reading and writing skills of ELA students?