Martin+M.

Hello- My name is Martin Mintz. I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia and went to school at Washington University in St. Louis, where I majored in History. This is my first year in New York City and I have really enjoyed living in this city- what an exciting place to live! I am a first year Teach For America Corps Member teaching Social Studies to 8th graders in the South Bronx. One thing that I have loved the most about the subject I teach is being able to bring the city that we live in into the classroom and having my students bring their lives today into a historical frame/context. Other than teaching, I love exploring the city and, when I am not in the city, I like being outdoors, hiking and camping (especially when I am back home in Georgia)

__My life as a technology user:__
====I feel that I am often thinking or talking about how technology has affected my life. Usually, that thought or conversation has to do with how much something has changed my life or just how NEW this technology is... how nice it is to be able to look up restaurants or find an address using my phone... or the fact that my iPhone (and the new technology it uses) is both so new and transformative in terms of how I communicate and function in the world. ====

====A lot of it is exciting, but it is also, for me, quite overwhelming at times. I benefit in many ways from the use of technology in my life, but I do not utilize/fully understand so much of what is out there. Typing classes in elementary school, where we would type for speed with plastic covers hiding the keyboard’s letters was probably the only time I was explicitly taught how to use technology in my life. Most everything else I have just learned from doing or figuring it out some other way (asking a friend, etc) but I think this also means there is so much more to do! Simple things, such as setting up blogs or navigating those types of websites is confusing to me, so there is certainly much more that can be learned--I feel like I might know how to function quite well technologically, but I am just scratching the surface in terms of what technology can offer. ====

====As you can tell from the paragraph above, computers have been in my life since elementary school. I have had internet in my home since late elementary school, I think. AIM was very popular in middle school! I received a cell phone from my parents when I started driving. It was about time, and my mom wisely did not want me driving alone without some way to call. And I received my first personal computer laptop for high school graduation. My iPhone was a Christmas present during Freshman year of college. It is interesting how some of the major technological firsts are tied to important parts in your life, because they sure do affect your life. ====

A recent brush with seeing how important technology is in my life happened when I lost it! I guess that is what happens with a lot of things... you do not really think about it until you don't have it. Anyways, this past December, I took a group of students on a trip to go ice skating. That week, I had given students their permission slips as well as information about the trip, how to contact me, etc. The night before the trip it started to snow. That night, I also left my cell phone in the back of a taxi cab! So, the next morning, I went to the meet-up point at the specific time and, luckily a good group of students came. I missed a lot of communication, however, and about half of the students who were supposed to go did not go in the confusion. They still talk to me about it today, asking if we are going to reschedule and how I better not lose my phone again! I missed being able to talk on the phone, clearly, as many students tried to call me that morning. However, with my iPhone, I also realized how much that has changed how I plan, how I communicate and WHEN I communicate. Beyond thinking about the actual phone calls, I left my apartment without checking my emails, looking exactly where the ice skating rink were, etc... these were all things that I knew, but, instead of printing things out and preparing the night before, I relied on having that technology in my hands. When I did not have that technology in front of me it was very disorienting and strangely difficult to adjust. As I mentioned earlier, I have only had an iPhone for about four years, but it is so weird to see how much I rely on it now. In other documents for this class, I speak to the sometimes detrimental effects of having easy technology in your hands, and I experienced that with my students a couple months ago.

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Attached is a picture taken this week when I went ice skating in Central Park with some of my students! (This is the same trip from the story above) I look forward to learning more about yall as we work together and also to taking this class; I think it will be very helpful for me.

Below is a link for my personal use project virtual journal. It is a Google Doc and should be open for anybody to read. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Os8ei22_nfFeU7yJv-e0QosngW0psebmntK2hmJXFeE/edit

Thank you, Martin

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Here is my Learning Goal Reflection Thanks for reading!