Digital Technology Week 1 – Introduction
Week one of the Digital Technology course commenced on the 9th of January 2018. This module is not one of the core modules, it was one we were to pick, and I chose this specific module as I thought I have a reasonable understanding of technology and can use it to a certain extent, but I knew that my competence could always be improved. I have learned through my experiences how much of an importance digital technology has in primary schools and that it is ever growing, and teachers must be able to keep up and be able to use it to the best of its abilities. This is the main reason I thought It would benefit me to choose this module over the other choices.
This weeks input was mainly an introduction to the course. This included going through the module page on moodle making sure we all know our way around it and learning where to find things that we will need to use in the future. We then got asked the question, what is Digital technology? I found this question hard to find an answer. Eventually my answer was very vague saying that it is using electronic devices. I now know after reading the Scottish governments document that it is much more than that and my understanding of this has improved massively even after just one week. I now know that digital technology is a term that is used to describe the digital application, services and resources that can be used to find, analyse, create, communicate and use information.
We got the chance to read the Enhancing Learning and Teaching through the use of Digital Technology – a Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy for Scotland (Education Scotland, 2016). This document talks about technology used in teaching and what their aims are and how they plan on reaching them. I learnt that the aims of this strategy are:
• Develop the skills and confidence of educators in the appropriate and effective use of digital technology to support learning and teaching.
• Improve access to digital technology for all learners.
• Ensure that digital technology is a central consideration in all areas of curriculum and assessment delivery.
• Empower leaders of change to drive innovation and investment in digital technology for learning and teaching.
I was surprise at the fact that they are trying to introduce technology into the assessment side of learning which will benefit children who excel in this area of school and learning compared to others. I think that with the way that technology is ever growing and spreading making it easier to access no matter where you are or who you are then these aims will be achieved.
We got the chance to explore glow, to evaluate what we have already learned/know about how glow works and what it can be used for. We also got to explore new tiles and add relevant and useful ones to our launch pad. I added tiles such as Primary Resources and BBC languages to my launch pad as I thought they would be useful in the future when it comes to going into the classroom.
Overall my first week in the digital technology module introduced the course also it expanded my understanding of what digital technology is and what we are going to be learning about throughout this course. It also allowed us to explore the moodle page and the glow website. Through this module I hope to build my confidence in using technology and learn how to incorporate it into teaching effectively.
Reference
Digital Technologies (2016) A Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy for Scotland [module resource] Available: http://www.moodle.uws.ac.uk Digital Technologies Module on Moodle [Accessed: 9th January 2018]
