My Digital Evolution!

 

I have never been a tech savvy person, however always been good at adopting technology quickly wherever it is required. My relationship with technology can be termed as “need based”, and if we look under the lens of today’s digital era, then this need has become a mandatory thing to evolve and survive in professional and personal space. If you want to excel, then there shouldn’t be any escape from digital presence.

My early experience with technology during my own academic journey was limited to overhead projectors, where I used to make transparent slides and used it for my class presentation. Later with easy accessibility to computers and laptops, it switched to Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word for class tasks and assignments. Through my technological learning evolution, I realized if you have an urge to learn as an ongoing process then “technology” becomes a handy companion along your way. On the other hand, stagnancy in the domain of digital literacy lags you behind to be benefited from this amazing learning aid. The shelf-life of technological products is very small, so keeping up with the digital trends is key to success.  

My teaching journey embarked on in late covid times, where technology has already impacted the teaching practices. Being new in the field I had to catch up to so many new tools. Every step of my teaching career taught me a new digital platform or tool to enhance my experience. Online classes were new skill for me. I used ‘Microsoft Teams’ platform to conduct online lesson. I noticed that learning technology is not a one session phenomenon, where you read, understand, and apply. Rather it is a process where trial and error play a vital role in shaping your competency. There were days when technological platform didn’t work out well to support my teaching, but it’s important that how and to what extend you explore it and turn the ball in your court.

One of the key things I have learned from the usage of technology in classrooms is always have your Plan B ready. One cannot completely rely on one digital source solely. I remember once during my early teaching days, I had planned a lesson based on using a technological tools “Quizzes” as a starter of the lesson, but for some technical reasons I couldn’t execute it. Instead of panicking, I instantly altered it with another activity to carry out the lesson. This taught me a very valuable lesson that teacher is the main driving force of the teaching and learning process. Technology would facilitate you to make the process more effective and viable, but at the end how optimally utilize technology will still be in educator’s hand.

I would still consider myself in the growth phase of my digital learning curve, where there is yet so much to discover and learn in order to be at the top of my game!