TECH TASK #1:
My name is Lindsey Chow and I’m from the small northern town of La Ronge. (Air Ronge actually, but they are only one kilometer apart and no one I mention this to has ever heard of Air Ronge.) I graduated from Churchill Community High School in 2010, and I spent the last year waitressing to save up for university. I’m in the Bachelor’s of Secondary Education program with a major in mathematics. My mother is a teacher at Churchill, but I never had her as my teacher. I graduated with a French Bilingual Diploma, and my mother teaches grade 8 homeroom in English. My father works at the Key Lake mine. Outside of school, I like to do cosmetic art, practice yoga, and watch excessive amounts of YouTube.
I personally find I use technology every day. Whether it’s my cell phone, my laptop, or my Wii, I am never far from an electronic device. In school, we did not much rely on electronics outside of simple typed word documents and maybe the occasional PowerPoint presentation. Most of our learning was done through lectures and textbooks. During the last year I spent waitressing, most of the work is all manual. Orders were not put through a computer to the kitchen, they were written my hand and hung for the chefs to read. There was no light or buzzer to signify if the food was ready, there was just an old fashioned bell. The only electronics that were necessary were the till and debit machines.
I find the use of technology in classrooms adds to the children’s productivity. Children tend to pay more attention in class when different forms of media are used in lessons. Perhaps it is because watching an educational video relieves the monotony of hearing the same person speak every day, or maybe it could be that the media is often more elaborate than a simple lecture. However, I find certain types of technology to be a waste of the school’s budget. Churchill had ordered an elliptical exercise machine for every junior high classroom this year. Apparently, the physical exertion causes a higher production rate of brain cells. Instead of spending $20000 on new machinery, why not send the children outside for a quick run or a game occasionally?
In this class, I am expecting to learn to use various types of media more effectively and how the use of it may benefit the next generation of children in school. I expect to gain an understanding of how electronics can add a new dimension to today’s education.
lindseychow 