Week 5 technology in the classroom and school

 Time spent: 8:00-11:30

1. Sequence of Events. 

Students are working on a 2D drawing from life, requiring them to find an image on google, then submit to a shared google slide in order for the teacher to print them off for them. However, on this day the wifi within the entire district was down. Internet use throughout the entire school was not an option. 

1. Elaboration of One Significant Episode

When thinking in terms of episodes and events surrounding technology use, I am immediately drawn to the new law that just passed in Indiana that students are not allowed to have their phones out in class in order to avoid distractions. Although I have a lot of thoughts surrounding this new law, I think that at its core it will never work, I also think it is unsafe given the amount of school shootings that occur at an alarming level within the United States. 

With that being said, I have seen first hand how this law does not work in practice, especially within Muncie Central High School. At MCHS, when a student needs to use the restroom they have to use their phone in order to have the teacher ‘accept’ the request they’ve put in on the school's app. After that request has been okayed by the teacher, a timer then starts that tracks the time spent out of class. One day, the entire wifi within the school was down, meaning that the students app that's typically used was not an option. So, teachers were required to hand write passes and phones were not permitted to leave the classroom. One student needed to use the restroom, so the teacher wrote a pass, the instructed him to leave his phone with me and asked me to watch the hall as the student went to the bathroom. The student was not happy about this and was not fond of me having possession of his phone or watching the hall as he went to the restroom, and honestly, I was a bit uncomfortable too. 

1. Analysis of Episode(s). 

When thinking back on this episode, I am aware of the role I play as a future educator, however I am also still a student at the end of the day who is learning. I am a new presence within this classroom, so why would this student want to leave their phone with me? A person he has known for not even three weeks. Although there was no argument or situation to de escalate, it really had me reflecting on this new law. Phones are personal property that house personal information and items, I personally would not feel comfortable leaving my phone with someone I just met simply to use the restroom. I do understand the principal of the situation, but at the end of the day I felt awkward holding this student's phone that is not only riddled with germs, but is extremely important to the student. Obviously, I would never do anything to invade ethos students' privacy, it was just the principle of holding someone's property that is essentially a necessity in this day and age. At the end of the day, nothing negative happened. It was just more so me reflecting on the new law in place and how this individual must have been feeling knowing that a new person is in possession of their personal item. I think that the student and myself would have both felt more comfortable if there was a cubby or pouch of some sort to leave theri device in.