I work as a teacher in primary school. This year I teach second graders, all school subjects included. Additionally I teach music to other grades, too.
When I started my career, over 25 years ago, we had only one computer in classrooms. Digitalisation at school was largely limited to use of word processing programs. As far as I can recollect, we used a program called Microsoft Works. Some disks for learning were also available. Because of the small amount of computers, only one or two pupils were allowed to use a computer during a lesson.
Nowadays, in my work as a teacher digi tools are commonplace. Every day I use e-mail and Wilma. Pupils learn sometimes by creating Google Docs and Slides -documents and practice their skills via different kind of apps. As a music teacher I could utilize for example GarageBand in my teaching, but I prefer real instuments. In my opinion learning music is more rewarding, when you sing and play yourself, not with iPads.
COVID-19 made a total lockdown in March 2020. I did all my teaching by digital tools, mostly by Google Meet, Wilma and Google Classroom. First it was quite laborious, but soon I started to find some positive aspects, too. I didn’t have to travel one hour a day to work and back. I could sleep later in mornings and I saved some gasoline, too.
For some pupils (and for their parents, too) studying at home via Google Meet was challenging. They couldn’t get necessarily the help they would have needed. In my opinion we all (me, my colleagues and my pupils) were quite satisfied, when it was possible to open the school buildings again.
In the future digital tools will be a growing part of my job. It’s possible, sometimes easier and even necessary to communicate with colleagues, pupils’ parents and other stakeholders via for instance Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet apps. COVID-19 has changed ways of communication, perhaps permanently. Still, it´s important to share feelings, expressions and gestures in live meetings. Digital tools can help us to work more effectively, but they should be only tools, not the main thing in communication between people.
Positive and negative effects of open digital society
Development of digi society has been huge. Almost everything can nowadays be handled by computer or smartphone. What´s the use of calling or visiting, if you can text or e-mail instead? It’s so much easier and faster way to communicate. If you send an e-mail, a recipient can read and answer it when she or he has time to do that.
In my opinion, texting or e-mailing is a useful way to communicate in ”official” things – if you for example have to contact The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, your bank, your child’s teacher to tell that a kid has to go to the dentist during a school day, and many other institutions. Even some health issues can be handled by using for example Omakanta. You can save your time, when you don’t have to queue in a phone. But. It really is worth calling and visiting sometimes. When your close ones (family and friends) are concerned, it really is better to go and visit or at least call them. Digi tools cannot replace the live connection.
To communicate via writing you have to know how to write, of course. You must become understood without expressions and gestures. Emojis have developed to replace non-verbal communication. But are they enough?
If you have to communicate in foreign language, it’s often easier to write than speak. You can take time for things you want to say (write). Also for the recipient it’s more comfortable to read messages in all peace.
Social media can be dangerous. Some people have need to share everything in their lives. It may be fascinating to see, how many likes you get in Facebook or Instagram. It’s ok so far as it concerns only you, but if you share pictures other people involved, you should remember the Data protection reform (2016). Everybody in EU has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her and access to data which has been collected concerning him or her, and the right to have it rectified (https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/data-protection-reform/). We, as responsible adults, should protect especially our children from sharing information and pictures involving them.
Self-evaluation
It was interesting to read blogs written about digi society. I found many familiar things. We share advantadges and threats of open digi society. The whole world is achievable with a few clicks.
Up to this point, the most important thing I’ve learned during this Digitalised Working Enviroment course was how to build a blog. At first I thought it would be quite difficult, but the instructions were detailed and easy to understand. In fact it was really interesting to learn how to build my own blog! Writing in English was also very refreshing for my brains! It has been some time since I last wrote so much in English.
The blogs I commented:
An orientation assignment will appear here soon.
Hey Kati! It was interesting to read about your experiences of the teacher’s work and the impact of digitalisation on your work. In particular coronavirus and distance learning certainly presented a lot of challenges and increased the use of various digital applications.
Hi Kati!
You described very well how the pandemia and forced digital leap have influenced to your life and work. I share your feelings that despite digital tools are very useful in many cases in our lives, it still is very important to share feelings, expressions and gestures in real life. I think this is important also to adults but necessity to children, who are still learning how to be human and no virtual contact can take place from it.