Technology is a fantastic tool which has drawn a lot of frustrations into my classroom today. Being new to the technology hub of things I was pretty excited when I learned that I could share documents with my students on Google Docs. So with enthusiasm, I wrote up a lesson plan about taking notes for their persuasive essays and how to share it with me at the end of class. Last Thursday, it was put to the test and hence my first frustration began. When I shared the document with all my students I put them as collaborators not realizing that they could all delete, change and add to my document. I found this wonderful fact out during my first class when my writing soon disappeared and student’s thoughts, ideas and facts were appearing on the page before me instead. I quickly seeked advice and after trying out a few things, I soon realized that if I delete the document and resend them one as viewers only, everything would work out. So, you live and learn and keep on trying new things, tweeking until you get them right!
Everything was going well, I was able to load everyone’s document, read what the wrote and leave comments for all of them for today’s class. It was brilliant until my students went to open Google Docs and their documents would not load. Ahh..the frustrations set in again as they panicked because they thought their work was lost and tried to figure out what to do with out the work in front of them. The class went one of two ways: either they sat and stared at the screen hoping it would download or they opened word and continued their notes hoping to upload it later into Google Docs.
Through this experience,even though frustrating at times, I still feel these are valuable tools the students should be using. These couple of days were also teachable moments in the classroom as well. The students learned that plans do not always work out. They also learned that technology is not fool proof and you cannot always depend on it. The internet does not always work the way you want it to and you should always have a back up plan. The students learned a lot those few days and now I feel they are better students for it. They still continue to use Google Docs but now seem to back up their work in Word as well, just in case. I have grown as a teacher too. I learned to always have a backup plan when using technology and that you have to be flexible in the plans and teaching. I have to be able to go with the flow and adjust as needed. What an incredible learning experience yet frustration day!
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