Blog Journal #2

    My experience with Microsoft Word was not very extensive until I began attending FSU. Since I access Microsoft Word and other Microsoft applications through FSU, before I came here I used Google Docs primarily. I now prefer using Word because it is more intuitive and it flows seamlessly with my classes as well as with Canvas. I had a hard time with Word at first because I was so used to Google Docs because that was my primary word processing application throughout all of my schooling thus far. 

    After reading through the different ISTE standards, I believe that the most crucial to K-12 educators would be the designer. The job of the designer is for an educator to "design authentic, learner-driven activities and environments that recognize and accommodate learner variability." This personal touch to education can be very useful to students of younger ages who otherwise would get lost in the mix of a generalized education system. Taking the time to address students as individuals rather than as a collective, I feel you would get better participation, response, and results from your students over all. 

    I do believe that the youth of today could be considered "digital natives." As discussed in class, a digital native is someone who was born with technologies such as the internet, personal computers, and more advanced cell phones leading into smartphones. I have witnessed some of my older professors not be as tech-savvy as some of my younger professors. In some instances I have had teachers negate technology entirely, teaching purely in lecture format with writing on the board instead of using presentations. At some point with my generation, as has happened with older generations past, technology will get out of our hands, whether by us not learning new technology anymore or by us not taking the time and interest to learn how these new technologies work. This could potentially pose the same issues that I have had with teachers, but in all honesty I am not expecting real large-scale changes to technology that would overhaul how educators educate. I am sure that teachers will still have their students contact them via email and such. Technological advances in education will not replace current ones, but only make education more easily understood or allow information to be more understandable and easily presented.