From Pink Nintendos to Tik Tok Trends- My Life with Technology

I was born in the year 2000 (yes my birth year starts with a 2), so there was never a point in my life where it was before technology or after technology- my entire life had technology. While I was never an iPad kid, I did have a pink Nintendo DS, a Wii, and the Leap Frog computers. When I started elementary school, there was five MacBooks in our classroom for the class to share, but if we needed more our school had several “COWs” (computer on wheels) that our teachers could rent. We used these to practice keyboarding and to play coolmathgames.com

Going into middle and high school, I was given a laptop to bring home and it was the best day of my life. We were expected to do a lot of our assignments online and turn it in. We were encouraged to take notes on google docs and to use google slides, prezi, and create movies for projects. It was helpful for research projects as I could search databases and create citations within seconds, saving me time. It was also great when you were absent as you didn’t have to rely on people to take good notes or to grab extra copies of assignments, I could access everything from home.

During my sophomore year of college, the COVID pandemic occurred and it shifted the way we used technology. I was on spring break, and it was extended as professors was were scrambling or how to continue their teaching without being in person. We were introduced to zoom meetings, AI, and Tik Tok. Learning through a computer screen was very difficult to me as I value human interaction as part of my learning. Being a chemistry major and in the teacher prep program, I needed my study groups to help me for difficult homework organic chemistry homework to bouncing lesson plan ideas with my education cohort.

When I started teaching these last few years, I have adopted a hybrid approach when it comes to my science classroom. Something that has been very helpful is the virtual lab simulations of Gizmo and PhEts for when students miss lab days, they are still able to participate without me having to set up the lab again for one student who missed. Sometimes I feel bad going to my veteran teachers and talking to them about things that I need help with or bothering on things that I should know, but it makes me feel better when they come to me for ideas and help with technology.

They are perks in having a gen z/millennial on your team/school, not only can they help you with the technology aspect, but they can also translate the lingo and let you know the Tik Tok trends.