What Role That I Feel Media Technology Should Play in Teaching at Any Level

Hello, Readers! My name is Jennifer, aka JMo occasionally. I was always a reader, but then I became a writer, mostly of poetry, and a few short stories and narratives. I went from a passive relationship to literature to an active relationship once I figured out how to be creative by having a pencil and notebook in my pocket at all times to write down any waft of a poem past my ears.  

I have already completed all classes for my B.A. in English / Creative Writing. I am only four classes away from finishing a second B.A. in English Literature and a Minor in History. I work in a library, and plan on transferring to get a Master's in Library Information Science. Some day I'd like to work professionally in genealogy.

The role that I feel that media technology should play in teaching, at any level, is as a tool to enhance what is being taught. As a student, media technology has been used in classrooms my whole school life at least since fourth grade, when they showed an entire film in our classroom, the musical, "1776". It's one of the best things I remember about grade school! As time went by, it was slides, filmstrips, educational movies, videos, and eventually computers. But it was all to enhance the learning or to teach one to learn. For instance, the film was to enhance everything being done at my grade school to celebrate a national holiday which included a play, a gym-sized quilt display, dressing up in costumes, and listening to music. 

I have witnessed particularly effective uses of media technology as a student in the use of educational or informative videos in classes. I remember what happened in those visual tools much more than any notes I ever read or wrote down. It is amazing how visual images will stay in the mind's eye long after watching them. For instance, in 2022 at CSUN, I had a class called Popular Culture, and the professor used many film clips to support the lectures, but I remember most of the film clips better than the lecture on what aspect of culture that the clips were representing. I was once acquainted with a psychologist who used film clips to SHOW patients information about their kind of issues, which to him was better than TELLING them, and they learned by seeing.

In terms of the advent of phone use as media technology, it depends on what it is being used for. At one time a phone was just a phone for talking. Then they added texting, then pictures, then internet, then everything else. As someone who loves looking up information, I am beyond thrilled and delighted to have a pocket sized computer with me at all times, I can look up anything at any time to feed my information questions. If a student in school is just using a cell phone for social media on school time, unless it is school related, which is a part of many school's methods of disseminating information now, it should be treated the same as talking or writing notes in class. How a phone is used is the important thing.