Blog Journal 2

During middle school, my entire class was taught how to use MS Word and how to save these Word Documents as PDF's and other exportable files. Through learning so much about how to use MS Word at such a young age, and continuing to use this software throughout the rest of my time in middle school and high school, I became very favorable of it over other word processing softwares. While in college, we have free access to all of the Microsoft tools, which allowed me to continue using this as my primary form of word processing and online organization without worrying about taking up too much storage. Google Docs was a word processing software that I was never taught to use or expected to use in schools, so I never tried to learn all of its functions and tools in the same way that I used MS Word. 

ISTE Standards are the standards made by the International Society for Technology in Education, as they work to guide and disseminate information about how to utilize technology for efficiency in the classroom. After reviewing the ISTE Standards for Educators, the one that is the most meaningful to me is Standard 2.3- Citizen, in which Educators work to inspire and teach children how to utilize and participate with technology safely and effectively. This Standard involves four sub-points, each one promoting how educators can help mentor students and promote safe and socially responsible engagements with the digital world, which is crucial for students to learn and understand at school. The most important of the standards I believe is found inside of 2.3, which is 2.3b- Evaluate Sources for Credibility, in which teachers educate digital literacy through an evaluation of their information and understanding the rhetoric behind what they are seeing and the credibility of the information. I think that this standard, as well as many of the other ones that are presented in the ISTE site are incredibly meaningful and will be beneficial for students to learn about while they are in school. 

A digital native is a reference reserved for younger generations, who are said to understand the internet on a more fluent basis than older generations. I think that many of Prensky's claims about digital natives are understandable and I agree with them. There is a generational divide between the technological and digital literacy between many people that were born into a world where the internet and technology already existed and those that had to learn it beforehand. I agree with the point that everyone had to learn how to use technology, but the age at which this was first introduced helped dictate the speed of technological literacy for various technology tasks, which is the broad notion that Prensky is making in his claims about digital natives. I have seen the differences between how I would use technology, as a digital native, and how my teachers use it, as digital immigrants. This can be seen in situations involving not knowing how to control the settings on a computer or not understanding how to utilize specific functions on a technology device that is needed. None of these instances have ever impacted my learning or heeded it, but it has shown me the benefits of understanding technology and being able to use it effectively in various settings. I am sure that once I am teaching students, or working with kids, technology will have advanced even more and that they will be more knowledgable than me on many of the tools and functions of devices.