"It's Not About the Technology" by Kelly Hines
Kelly Hines makes a great argument in her post about technology not being the answer to our schools' problems. She feels we must have great teachers who are ready to learn to better themselves. Without good teachers, all the technology in the world is not going to help our schools. I believe Kelly Hines is 100% correct. What she says is so true. As a teacher myself, I see these same problems in our schools. Some teachers get too comfortable and set in their ways. They're not willing to use the resources at their disposal. There is so much to learn as a teacher. I don't think learning ever stops. It's not just the students who learn in schools. I've only been teaching six years, but I feel I'm learning new things all the time. And as teachers we should know, if you teach it and the students didn't get, then we have to teach it in a different way.
Technology is definitely useless if there are not good teachers behind it. In one of the comments to Hines's post, someone said that technology may cause teaching to become a more competitive job market, and I believe that to be the case. The student teachers of today need to be well-trained in technology as well as their method classes. I think the universities are doing a better job of that. I hope the students graduating in the future will be ready for the challenge that teaching is, and the teachers who are not willing to change will soon be ready for retirement.
Karl Fisch: Is It Okay to Be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?
Karl Fisch uses some strong language to get his point across in this post written back in 2007. He believes very passionately that in this day and age, all teachers should be technology literate. All educators should achieve a certain standard of technology literacy, and if not the principals and the school system should be held accountable. Even universities should loose their right to teach education if they put out graduates that are not literate in the field of technology. It just seems inevitable. The world is becoming more technological every year. All people need to be comfortable with technology.
I have to agree with Fisch. He makes a very strong case. How can teachers educate children in the 21st century and not have these skills? I especially enjoyed his analogy of teachers not knowing technology being the same as teachers not being able to read and write thirty years ago. It certainly is a dilemma for our country, and it should not be acceptable. He also says teachers might have been able to get away with it five or ten years ago, but as the years go on, it will be impossible to not be literate in this age of technology. Older teachers will just have to break down and learn it, and the universities will just need to make sure they are offering classes similar to EDM 310, so students will be prepared for it in the classroom.
Gary Hayes Social Media Count
I was absolutely amazed at how quickly the numbers grew on Hayes's Social Media Count. I guess I never realized often people join all the social networking sites. The constant activity on sites like Facebook, iTunes, and Google is unbelievable. So many people from all over the world are connected by these sites. The world is definitively becoming smaller thanks to technology.
As a teacher, we need be able to appreciate the statistics this site shows us. The great importance of these sites in undeniable. Teachers need to understand that value and embrace this technology. Many of our students will be using this technology and we should be not only aware of it, but able to use it. This is our world's future, and we as educators need to prepare our students for that future.
Michael Wesch: A Vision of Students Today
Michael Wesch created a short video with a college level anthropology class that summarizes some of the characteristics of today's students. It shows how students learn currently and how they should be learning. It makes us question ourselves as educators. Are we giving students what they need to go out into the world and be successful? Standing up and writing information on a chalkboard is outdated. Technology is already what the students are using. We as teachers should harness that and turn it into learning. If we want our students to be successful, we must embrace technology and use it to teach our students.
I think the video made some good points. Education needs to change because today's student has changed. Now teachers need to change the way we think of our students and our classroom. We need to be technologically literate so we can use that technology to engage our students. That is our future as educators.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteYou have written a detailed post which is good! When writing formally (as you are in this blog), try not to use contractions for words. Instead, write out the whole word. Otherwise, you write very well! You are definitely showing that you have done the assignment, but remember that you do not ALWAYS have to agree with everything presented!
By the way, I like the way you have set up the links for each video/article!