Reflecting (Interactivity #3) (3)

      As an English major, it doesn't surprise me that most of our technologies are under the "authoring" category. It was a little bit difficult to find technologies that were specifically related to English education initially. However, upon further research, I found a significant amount of technologies that were not necessarily specific to English education but could easily be used specifically for English classes. Many of our technologies are self-expression websites in the form of social networking, such as Tumblr and Think. These technologies are great both for the classroom and for outside of the classroom. They allow students to express themselves and to connect with people that are simply doing the same thing as they are: expressing themselves. Most websites like that are non-judgement zones, therefore giving the students a safe haven. As a collective group of technologies, I think that we chose technologies that are both relevant to the classroom and to the outside world. Many of them, though not specifically, involove some form of social networking which help the students to connect with other students that maybe aren’t in the same year or the same district as they are. Though social networking sites aren’t always condoned by educational professionals, the ones that we picked as a group are beneficial to a students education as well as with their personal lives. With the advances in educational technology being in the forefront of everything in this day and age, we as future educators need to accept and respond to them, and figure out a way to integrate them into our classroom. These technologies will definitely be making their way (if they haven’t already) into classrooms across the country, and most definitely ours when we start teaching, so opening our eyes to them now if only benefitting us and our future students.