First Journal!

     There are many reasons that would influence a teacher to use technology. One being giving their students the advantage of being fluent in technology. In today's digital forward world, it's almost impossible to be successful while not being knowledgable in technology. Another can be convenience: a teacher can know upload grades in an instant and a student can see where they are at in the class, teachers can upload PowerPoints and notes from the lesson that day so a student can look over the lesson at home at his own speed. This leads to an advantage for the students. It creates a more personable and hands on experience for the student so they can learn most efficiently. This is an influence for both teachers AND students. Students want to have all the resources to do their best in the classroom and again, convenience is a big part. 

        An ISTE standard that is meaningful for me is "Leader: Educators seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning" For me this would be the most important part. When a student is able to help others and lead their classmates then the lesson has really stuck. A student has to feel comfortable and most importantly confident in what they are doing. Educators need to really drill that in and enforce that empowerment. One that seems outside of my current skill set is "Analyst: Educators understand and use data to drive their instruction and support students in achieving their learning goals." Reading data and understanding it is a weakness of mine and I want to be able to help future students in any aspect I can. 

     I would say I definitely agree with the term "digital native" for today's youth. From the time we could talk, learn on our own, and so on, we had technology at our hands and technology keeps advancing every day. We never had to deal with a lack of internet resources, wireless connections, etc. This is especially true for those who are entering the school system now. Classrooms are able to have an iPad for each student with it being fully loaded with any resource they could need for their learning experience. There is definitely a difference with those who are "digital natives" and "immigrants". Each year, the older generation has to keep becoming more familiar with the new technology because for generations they were without smartphones, internet, phone apps, and so on. This impacted my learning experience because when new technology would come out, many teachers were either clueless on how to use it or were simply stubborn to adapt to these new resources. I think this will become less true as we become the future educators and the new future students have all the new technology. Overall, there will always be a learning curve needed.