Digital Tools in Digital Environments (EDLD 5317)

The shift in focus of educational technology has been interesting, to say the least, over my first 6 years of teaching. When I first began, the push was to use this then use this then use this, trying to force feed tool after tool into our classrooms. Now, I have seen the focus sway a bit, perhaps it is due to the fact that I am teaching in a different district, but the focus now seems to be on making the technology used in the classroom meaningful. To use new tools only if they are truly enhancing the learning. With that said, technology is still being forced upon us, not necessarily with teaching, but for collecting data assessment wise.

Making a definite evaluation is challenging because technology can be used in such a variety of ways. Overall, if used in any effective many, the potential is infinitely positive. As a high school mathematics teacher, one of my go to educational resources is Demos. Desmos as a discovery based application that provides students with unmatched visual representations of mathematical functions. Additionally, my district uses Schoology as our LMS as well as having the Microsoft suite. After teaching virtually both synchronously and asynchronously during the pandemic, I feel that I have built a strong foundation between these two organization wise, which is not necessarily related to the learning, but certainly plays a role.