6.5 Critical Reflection Journal Blog - Important Learnings Journal
What is new to my thinking or learning this past week? How has this new information challenged me? How has this stretched my professional growth and development? What are the implications of this week’s learning on my professional practice? How can these new learnings be used to impact my personal faith journey and my impact for the Kingdom?
As another week ends, my knowledge base continues to develop with new ideas, concepts and terminology. We learned about gamification and game-based learning. Both new concepts but perhaps it is more the terminology that was used. I am certain that games and game strategies have been used in education to one extent or another for many years. However, using technology-based games in education continues to emerge with advances in technology. For example, one of my first memories of technology-based games was a console that we connected to our black and white television and we used controllers to play what essentially was ping pong.
I also remember we had an Atari game console and we played video games like Space Invaders and Asteroids. These were strategy-based games and you learned hand eye coordination. Though these were technically computer-based games, the one that I have most memories of is when we got a Commodore 64 and we played the game of Qbert. This was a game that you moved a little character around a three-dimensional pyramid. When I was a student at IWU-Marion in the late eighties and early nineties, I took a computer education class where we used the Apple IIe computers with the monochrome monitors to do very basic programming and was introduced to games like the Oregon Trail and others to teach educational information.
Fast forward to 2022, technology has advanced dramatically. Students access information via the internet on a cellphone. They play educational and non-educational games on the same cellphone and concepts and techniques that were once taught in the classroom. With all of this in mind technology continues to change the face of education and how we teach students. It has also change where, when, and how students learn as well. While I see the positive side, I see several things that concern me.
No device or technology can ever replace good ole face to face conversation where the teacher and student make eye contact. Even as “virtual reality” emerges as a new form of methodology to emulate real life experiences, I believe we must find a balance in the classroom between old methods of hands on teaching and new technology-based learning. Don’t get wrong, I am not opposed to technology, new ways of doing things, and helping students what they need to be successful in the future, I am just saying we need to create an effective balance.
My opinion and ideology on this may seem a bit old fashioned and perhaps that is because I grew up in a different era. However, I believe that we must not be so dependent on technology that don’t know how to operate when technology fails or breaks. One thing I have wondered over the last several weeks is how do we teach common sense using technology? Is it something that can be taught in a technology or online-based setting? I continue to be challenged by all that I have learned and most importantly I realize that I need to keep an open mind and determine how to integrate the things I have learned into my current professional setting and beyond.
