Blog Post #5

 I started using Twitter in 2013 when I was in middle school. Most of my friends at the time were also getting accounts and it was a way for us to share content and send each other things. For the most part, I only used it with close friends and used the following function to follow my favorite celebrities, music artists, and companies. Now I use Twitter as my source for up to date news and content from some of my favorite creators. It is a really way to tailor the information you consume to match your more niche tastes. In the future, Twitter might be a way I connect with others that I work with, as well as my students. We use Twitter in this class and I can see myself using it within my classroom as well. Twitter has been a popular social media app for over 10 years and while I would like to think it will remain that way until I start my career there might be another application that people and teachers will use instead. 

I think one of the big causes of the digital divide is the difference between having to learn something as an adult versus growing up with something and it always being apart of your life. For digital natives using technology and social media have for the most part always been in our lives. We do not know a world without it and it feels almost second nature. For those who had to learn how to use new technologies, and at a very rapid pace, it does not come so easily. For someone who just had to get used to using the internet to suddenly having to have eight different social media accounts, there is a learning curve. There is resentment for all the change and a lack of understanding of its importance. These people know how to live their lives without the help of new technologies and many people in older generations just do not want to bother or are frustrated. As an educator, I am going to have to make it a priority to learn new technologies that young people are using. Understanding new technology and efficiently implementing it in the classroom could really elevate a class and make it so much more understandable to students. 

One software tool that I will implement in my classroom is the use of the online tool google classroom. This application is great for students to have organized assignments, the layout of expectations, and access to resources. I will be able to have detailed instructions that can always be access and a place to announce what we will be doing and what they should expect. It’s user friendly and I am able to put everything online in one place. Another software tool I would like to use in my classroom is twitter. As a teacher of any subject, I believe that it is important for students to keep up to date on what is going on in the world. Especially as a history teacher, I think this would be a great tool for them to follow a wide variety of news sites. I would want them to have a diverse and colorful feed that they check as apart of the class.