Blog #2: MS Word, ISTE Standards, and "Digital Natives"

For as long as I can remember, I have been utilizing technology for my school work; the most prominent of the technologies I was using, was a word processing system, specifically MS Word. I would say my experience with MS Word has been, overall, quite mixed. During my K-12 years, when I even got certified in MS Office, I felt Word was great and suited the needs I had then.  Now, however, I am more partial to other word processing software such as Google Docs. In college, I have had numerous experiences with collaborative work, wherein multiple parties would need to edit the same document. For this purpose, MS Word began to feel a little outdated and clunky as it did not offer real-time options for collaborative editing. I now use Google Docs for all group work, but stick to using the online version of MS Word for solo assignments or personal writing.

The most meaningful of the ISTE Standards, for me, was standard 2b which reads  "Advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content, and learning opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students". This is an important standard to me as I was raised, and still reside, in a county where the majority of students live below the poverty line which denies them access to services other students may take for granted such as having a personal cellphone with internet access, a personal or family computer that they can use at home, and/or a reliable internet connection in conjunction with the other needs above. While many schools are attempting to assign school laptops to each student with which to do their assignments, I fear this roll out will be quite slow in less affluent counties which need this service the most, and it falls on the shoulders of educators to push for legislation to make access to internet services equitable to all students. 

To be a "digital native" as defied by Prensky, is to have been born into a time in which internet technology already existed and thus use it better than individuals born before the internet boom. I, myself, am a digital native and do see significant differences between myself and "digital immigrants" that I know personally. One great example is my father who would most likely still use a flip phone if they were still widely available. Up until just two years ago, my dad had no form of social media--not even Facebook which is considered to be the social network most frequented by digital immigrants--it was only after great prodding from my mother and I that he created an account to keep up with family and friends. This experience of differences extended to many of my teachers K-12 as well as in college. Many of my teachers used analog/overhead projectors and did not fare well in the first few years with ceiling mount projectors and had even more troubles with smart boards when they were being integrated into our schools. In college, I began to notice less of a gap in technological know-how, except in one area--emails. While my peers and I seemed to know how to weave humor and a sense of camaraderie into our correspondence, most emails from professors seemed cold and almost apathetic no matter what we were discussing. At the rate with which technology is constantly progressing, I anticipate a gap in knowledge happening yet again between myself and my future students. There is a long standing joke that as soon as our generation becomes educators, we will struggling with holographic projection boards just as much as our teachers did with smart boards.