The first Blog

Hi everyone! Welcome to my new blog! This blog will be committed to introducing and discussing different topics that I'm covering in one of my grad courses at Plattsburgh State, EDU580. This week, we had to write about our personal technology journey. I talked about what kind of technologies were used when I was in school, and I talked about technologies I use now. I must say, I've come a long way, as pretty much everyone else has. My family used to subscribe to AOL for years, where you had to dial in to use the internet, and now my entire house has wireless internet. I use a computer pretty much everyday, and I don't really know how I could live my life without the computer technology that we have. It was really interesting to sift through memories and really think about how important technology is today.

I was reading one of our textbooks, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson, and came across an interesting fact. The book mentioned that the fastest growing group of internet users are 2 to 5 year olds. I found that fact to be completely fascinating! A 2-year-old using the internet?! I thought it was crazy, but then I got to thinking. I spend a lot of time with my 14-month old nephew (he lives with me), and he constantly sees my husband and I working on computers. He has seen this from the time he was born. He knows that you tap the keys on the keyboard to see symbols on the screen. He knows how to move the mouse to move the arrow on the screen. Also, if I'm looking at pictures or watching a video, he wants to see the picture and/or video as well. He knows that there is something interesting on the screen. I guess it's really not that far-fetched that a 2-year-old would be interested in using the internet. Children today are growing up in a totally different technological age than I did, and I think that adults need to really take that into consideration, especially teachers. Kids today are always connected to each other through instant messaging, Myspace, Facebook, and text messaging. They are always using technology. I find that simply fascinating. My nephew is growing up in a world where computers have always existed for him. Computers didn't exist for me until I was in fourth grade. Computers are something he'll just grow up with.