Positive and Negative Relationship with Technology

                                                              A Break from the Real World

Have you ever come home from work and just wanted to take a break? Being a first-grade teacher, I have found myself needing time away from what was happening in my world and zone out listening to what is going on in other people's worlds. The application TikTok and I have a complicated relationship some would say by having both a positive and negative impact on me.  To start, I am really aging myself here, but I was a huge fan of Vine. Vine is very similar to TikTok where members could make videos. A lot of the videos that I watched were silly, but there were ones that were serious as well like Family Members coming home from the military. I spent hours on Vine and my family became annoyed with me when I would constantly want to show them videos. 

Imagine Source: YouTube

When Vine was removed you can imagine how upset I was. I had to wait around for 4 years until TikTok was downloaded onto my phone. As I mentioned above, TikTok has made both a positive impact on me and a negative impact. I did not download TikTok until the lockdown for COVID happened. As we all know, this was a hard time for everyone to process what was going on. TikTok was my safe place. I could crawl up into my bed or go outside in my backyard and watch how everyone else was handling the pandemic. TikTok also allowed me to stay close with my family and friends. Any video that reminded me of someone I knew, I would send it out and we would have a laugh or a conversation of how we were doing. However, the pandemic is now over, and I still find myself spending hours scrolling. This is truly a way of how I escape. This sentence right here can describe my positive impact and negative impact TikTok has had on me.  

                                                                                  Negative Impact

I spend WAY too much time scrolling through TikTok when I should be doing something else to help me relax. It's hard because I know that my friends are doing it as well. I have so many messages that say, "I need to stop scrolling on TikTok or I should be doing XYZ instead of scrolling on TikTok,". To me, somedays I feel like I have wasted my time watching unimportant videos which causes me to have a negative outlook on the application. I recently just read an article that has to do with this. The article talks about how TikTok is affecting all of our mental health by constantly scrolling on it. This picture shows how much time I spend weekly on TikTok. 

WOWZA I am a little embarrassed, but this is the whole point of this assignment to analysis our relationship with technology. 

                                                                                    Positive Impact

Everyone knows teachers need to escape in order to survive the long school year. Especially when you have students who have several behavior problems, conflicts at home, or struggles academically. TikTok is my way of taking all of my worries and disappearing for a little. TikTok has taught me so much that I incorporate into my daily life. This can be from meals that I make, exercises that other TikTokers have done, and news that is happening around the world.  Now, I know from this post it might think that I am struggling to love what I do, but this Ted Talk is the reason I still love my career and show up every day for my kiddos. This is why as an educator I need to break free from what's going on in my classroom. 

Video Source: Youtube/Ted Talk

Hopefully you all as educators (and noneducators) can relate to taking a break and disappearing into a social media platform after a long day at work If not, then PLEASE do not start and comment how you go through every day without it!

My Video

Education TikTok Teachersandsocialmedia FirstGradeTeacher

Introduction to Lindsey McDill

My life as an educator:

Hello everyone! I am so excited to start blogging and for you all to be reading my blogs. My name is Lindsey McDill, and I am currently teaching first grade for my fifth year. Starting this school year, this is my seventh year as a teacher. My first two years, I was teaching second grade. My second-year teaching was when COVID started (what a time that was)! After COVID, I was asked to teach first and second grade in-person. That was probably my hardest year but also my favorite year. Then I moved to my new school where I have been teaching first grade for four years. I absolutely love teaching and sharing with everyone what happens throughout my days. 

Why I became a teacher:

My story is as to why I became a teacher is a lot like other educators' story. Growing up, I struggled so much to enjoy school that I fell behind quickly. My first couple years as an elementary school student, I did not connect with my teachers. This caused me to not enjoy school, however, my twin brother Dan excelled in school. When I went to second grade, I had a teacher who took the time to get to know me and make me feel important in the classroom. She helped me develop skills to be the best student I could be by teaching me the way I learned best.  I took these skills into my later years in elementary school, middle school, high school, and even college. In third grade, I was able to experience a class being with my twin brother. At this point, my brother was beyond the third-grade level, and I was still below it. Our teacher worked hard to meet the needs of my brother and meet the needs of me. I fell in love with the idea that teachers could help everyone as individuals. I try and do this with my students every year. I work hard to understand that each kid has their own skill level, and I have to figure out how I can help them grow as individuals and not as one whole class. 

My relationship with technology:

I love technology and I use it/help others understand how to use it. Growing up, I was always the person that my family would go to when needing help with anything technology. My grandparents always said, "we will wait for the master to help us". Both of my grandparents are on social media and understand how to use it. My grandma comments and likes everything and it keeps her busy. I think that I do a good job of "playing around" to understand how to use certain things or figure out problems. My family had an old computer that would not turn on and I spent months fixing it just by literally "playing around". At my school, I am someone who everyone goes around and asks for help. This probably started because I have always loved helping people figure out how to use it. For technology, I like to use all the social media platforms, my favorite is tik tok. If I wasn't a teacher, I wish I could be tik tok famous. I also like to use different photo developing websites like shutterfly. For this, you definitely need to have an understanding of how to use technology to make the project come out perfect. 

In my school, my students are one-to-one tablets. Last year, the district switched from ipads to tablets. The tablets are Microsoft tablets. This was a hard adjustment for myself and my students. We took it slow and together; we figured out how to use it. Unfortunately, since my students are younger, every problem, every question, goes through me. This causes a lot of distractions in the school day. I try and teach a couple students how to solve the problems so the students can first ask them and then if they still are having trouble, come to me. My students use many different applications. To start, they use clever. Clever has all of their online platforms in one place, which is super nice. They also use googlekids for projects. My students love to create projects on this, and I can trust that the platform is safe and user friendly. Recently, I have been trying to figure out a way to get them to create movies with incorporating their learning. As a class we play blooket and kahoot! 

Feelings about the course: 

I am very excited to continue to learn new ways to integrate technology into my classroom. Right now, I have a very outgoing and silly class. I have been having a hard time getting them focused and staying on task. I think this class will help with this because I can learn new ways to use their outgoing personalities to keep them engaged through technology and working together. The meme that I picked is showing how excited I am to get started and learn from this class and my peers! 

Introduction TechnologyinEducation FirstGradeTeacher Educator Technology Blogging