When I think about what a “day in the life” looks like for me regarding technology, the first thought to pop into my head was the 9 to 5 theme song (praise Dolly Parton). I use technology from the moment I wake up, until I go to sleep. The 9 to 5 workday has blurred the lines between our professional and personal lives thanks to having direct access to all of our files, contacts, conversations and information all in one place. The pandemic heightened the need to be able to connect digitally, however it became almost an expectation to have instant responses regardless of the time of day or day of the week.
I’d like to compare my use of technology to my husband’s because it is clear that opposites attract. When it comes to digital applications, I am someone who cannot have unread notifications on my phone for very long. My husband has over 2000 unread emails on his email app and it kills me slowly every time I see it. My hundreds of OneDrive files are neatly organized into subjects, units, assignments and so on, and my husband has 50 random documents on his desktop from 2011 to 2022. I believe that people who use technology in both their personal and professional lives have an advantage compared to those who don’t. This is simply because of exposure to multiple different applications and the time spend using the programs and devices.
Technology has completely embedded itself in my daily life. As a younger millennial born in 1995 I grew up with technology as it was evolving from the chunky, slow, desktop computer, to the state-of-the-art smartphones in our pockets. I also identify with a lot of “Zillennial” pop culture content a.k.a my love for Tiktok, but I still remember a time when technology did not rule our lives. I have learned and grown alongside technology. I have a decent understanding of utilizing technology both in my personal and professional life and I continually learn new tools and platforms as they become available.
A normal morning for me looks like this Monday-Friday.
6:30 AM – The alarm goes off on my iPhone sitting on my wireless charger stand with my iWatch and Airpods (Sorry to the androids users if you’re reading this)
7:00 AM – Listen to music through my iHome speaker while I get ready for the day and make breakfast (Big Swifty over here waiting for a double album drop on Friday the 13th…fingers crossed) During this time I have also checked numerous apps such as the weather, news, and apps with notifications and probably sent a message or two.
7:30 AM – Listen to a podcast through my apple car play on my 30-minute commute to the city from my home at Last Mountain Lake (Today explained, Papaya Podcast, Social Studies Podcast, Dear Hank & John, DST, Unlady Like just to name a few).
8:00 AM – Arrive at school, enter my classroom, turn on my projector, log in to my school device and open the numerous websites that I use on a daily basis as a teacher who has gone mostly paperless planning-wise.
- Planboard (Online day planning website)
- MSS for attendance
- Seesaw (Student portfolio & digital assignments)
- Outlook – Emails from staff and parents
- Microsoft Teams for morning announcements
- Powerpoint for Morning Meeting
- Wordle & Canuckle for our daily word game
Before my students have even walked in the door I have set up my day utilizing technology and it doesn’t stop there. However, I still like to have a balance of both hands-on learning, physical copies, and digital learning within the classroom. Throughout the school year, my students have gained so many new digital skills, and my hope is that they transfer those abilities to their future classes.
I am consistently connecting with people in a digital way. My students and I connect digitally through Seesaw, and during the height of the pandemic, we connected in a way that we never thought possible. The skills I acquired during online teaching have been transferable to my online master’s classes such as this one. I connect with coworkers and parents digitally mostly through email. And, I connect with friends and family through various social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Messenger, and Tiktok.
I know that for my own mental health, having some time away from my devices serves me very well. I often feel that I have so much screen time during the week at work and at home, that I really try to take advantage of the weekend and stay off of the computer, limit my scrolling time and enjoy a tv show or a movie distraction-free with my phone sitting in another room. I am starting to think that a scheduled digital detox would be something to consider when I am feeling at my lowest. I would love to hear if anyone has similar or different daily experiences than I do regarding technology use. Maybe it’s less, maybe it’s more. Please feel free to comment below and share your thoughts!
Ms. Mihial's Classroom 
YASSS KAT. The double album drop (we can clown together).
Aside from my mutual love of TSwift, I’d say we share a very common schedule in regards to use of technology and its prevalence in our lives. A lot of this probably has to do with the fact that we are of similar age as I have noticed it changes a bit depending on who is describing their daily life and how old they are. Although it sounds like since you are a connected educator, your students are getting a lot more technology use in the classroom!
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Unfortunately, I have not connected educator but I hope to be in the future. We do have 2:1 devices as we only have to share a laptop cart with one other classroom so we are very fortunate with our access to technology! Also, how disappointing was May 13th?! Boo….What will Blondie do next.
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Your post made me chuckle! I swear I’m an organized person, but I must say that I share more in common with your husband (please do not judge me!!). I promise I know exactly where everything is (mostly).
I would say that I also find that every now and again, I do need a detox from social media. Funnily enough, I have found that I have needed to unfollow certain education institutions/educators on Twitter because I found their tweets were more like WHY AREN’T YOU DOING ENOUGH instead of YOU’RE DOING GREAT, KEEP GOING! If that makes sense…so, cultivating the type of social media accounts I am exposed to has certainly helped with my overall mental health and has made me feel more supported as an educator!
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I have started unfollowing most of the education/teaching accounts that I been following since starting teaching mostly because it just reminds me of the negative aspects of teaching. I have been working hard at not taking work home and these posts always made me feel guilty for not working on the weekends.
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I am more in line with your husband’s style. My desktop gets crowded, eventually getting a little more under control when I organize everything about once a month. My email is also filled with a thousand messages, largely because I use my phone to check them and for some reason when I delete it through my phone, it refuses to delete it from my actual account.
You’re quite a bit younger than me. What you considered clunky and slow desktops, were amazing when I first gained access to them in high school, although downloading websites was painstaking with dialup. Still light years away from my first use of school computers with 4 colours and a tracking ball embedded in the giant keyboard.
I do have a similar morning routine to you, with too much screen time first thing and my smartboard typically humming as students walk in. Every year in health I do a screen time tracking and I am always close to the top. Since our school switched to Edsby, I have found I have cut back on constantly connecting with students. I found Seesaw was easier to reply and communicate, which resulted in me being “on” for far too much of my home time. While parents loved how quick I was to reply before, the switch has improved my mental health.
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That’s interesting to hear about switching from Seesaw to Edsby. We currently use Seesaw as a digital portfolio and a place to complete digital assignments. I haven’t used it for parent communication but I know that others do. We will be moving to Edsby in September however I believe we are also sticking to using Seesaw as well.
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Elder Millennial here, and I relate to everything you’ve said. Right down to the “killing me slowly” differences between an organized desktop/inbox and a congested one! Here’s what the Harvard Business Review has to say about it: https://hbr.org/2012/02/stop-email-overload-1
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Email overload is absolutely a thing! I’ve done a good job of unsubscribing from junk email mostly from stores and websites where I’ve created an account and that made a huge difference. However, when it comes to work emails specifically it can be hard to sift through everything coming especially near the end of the year!
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I am the exact same way… I have to clear off my notifications immediately. I betcha the stress of those who can live so carelessly and freely with a million notifications have better mental health with technology lol. I think a digital detox would be great. It is so hard to find time during the day to be on my phone that I find myself having wind-down time that tends to just be me on my phone while watching tv. Thanks for a thought-provoking post. Looking forward to another fun / successful semester with you!
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I am in a similar boat! I have started putting my phone on silent or even in another room while I am watching a movie or my favourite binge-worthy show that I want to pay attention to so that I am less distracted with social media on my phone.
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LOVE TO DOLLY!!!!
Now it will be stuck in my head for the remaining of the week, but will remind and help me cut back on the careless scrolling through social media! I totally agree, I cannot handle that little 1 sitting on top of my icons! I have loved reading all the blogs this week and seeing how emerced we are in technology without even know!
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I have said it on a few people’s blogs, and I am going to repeat myself here, but thank you for either choosing a theme or using the ‘READ MORE’ block to break up your posts on your main page. This makes it so much easier for people to comment on your posts and to see the difference between each post. It is so very helpful, so thank you!
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