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creativechris · 6 years

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Is Technology Taking Over!? (Thing 3) 💻🤖

As mentioned in previous posts, I haven’t been working in care for a long time so I use most of the latest technology every day. I got a laptop when I was 7 years old and since then I’ve always felt comfortable with computing and IT skills. Despite this, things have still changed as iPads are being used in nearly every class. I had only experienced learning with iPads in P7. It seems that would now be considered a little late to start using iPads. In fact, my first half of primary school rarely used technology such as smart boards, smart phones, iPads and laptops.

I would say my personal tech skills are reflected below:

1 (very low), 2 (low), 3 (average), 4 (high), 5 (very high)

Capability 5 ✔️

Confidence 5 ✔️

Relevance 4 ✔️

Just a quick note about relevance: I think technology is something children experience often so it should be explored but I don’t think that lack of technology would deeply affect a child’s ability to learn.

Even though it may looks like a lot has changed since I was in primary school (and it has), I still feel very comfortable using the latest gadgets of the 21st century. In my experience, staff in care organisations do seem to know how to use technology but there have been a couple of times the DVD player does not work or a USB isn’t being recognised at work and many of us haven’t known what to do. Technology is nearly everywhere we turn so you would think tiny things like this would be easy to solve, but that’s not quite the case. I may only feel comfortable with solving issues like this because I have grown up in a digital world. Some staff I work with are not as involved in technology as I am at home. I think everyone has some sort of computer but not many have tablets too. I have used a TV, a computer, a laptop, a games console, a phone, a smart phone, a tablet, USB speakers, earphones, headphones and wireless networks. I have access to most of these at home so if there were any technical issues involving these gadgets, I think I could solve the problem.

I do think that technology training might to be a good idea because technical problems do come up a lot at work (often to do with our games console) and often only a few of us know what to do. Although, there is some digital training out there, I have only seen it in one of my jobs. When I was working as a practitioner, we had a conference-style training in the classroom. It was about computerised observations. They called it ILD (Individual Learning Diary). If technology training for social media, computer interfaces and every other gadget we use at work was provided, I think all the staff at my work would be up for it. It could be a question-answer session and we could talk through how to do certain things with technology such as making a movie with an iPad. I think this would give more experiences to children and give us some completely fresh activity ideas.

Technology is a better solution to paper-based documents as staff can record things on a database on a password-locked computer. The only issue is, technology is a lot more temperamental and you could lose important notes a lot easier by accidentally not saving your work for example. Once again, this is why training should be an option.

I should say, I do worry that the profession will slowly give into AI (Artificial Intelligence) and this would not be a good thing. I think this because a robot may not be able to read children’s body language and emotions as effectively as a human... but don’t worry, I doubt robots will be taking over any time soon. 😂

I think technology use should be encouraged more since it is very relevant but I don’t think managers should just leave workers to it. Admittedly, digital resources can be very difficult to understand if you have not had experience with the symbols and keyboard shortcuts. That’s why training should be seen more in care settings because children are growing up with technology and activities may be more meaningful if they sometimes involve gadgets. Let’s not go too far though. Sometimes a good old board game is just as fun! 😄

- Christopher 😃

#sssc23things #technology #whydigital #werk

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