I believe that technology and education need to go hand in hand. In today’s world being literate in technology is essential and I feel that education should reflect that. In my philosophy of education paper, one of the things I talked about wanting to be the kind of teacher who taught kids the basic facts and skills that they would need to succeed in life. I believe tat technology is a big part of what kids will need to succeed in the future.
I also feel that in order to be the most up to date with our curriculum, technology must be used quite a bit. Gone are the days when teachers used overhead projectors and chalkboards. Kids now have the benefit of smart boards, laptops, and other technological advances in the classroom. A student can research an answer to a question in a matter of seconds. Computers and the Internet can provide accesses to visuals that were never possible before. A student can even go on a virtual field trip. In order to help our students be able to compete in the job market of the future we must teach the kids about technology and use it to make our lessons more rich.
A lot of questions came to mind as I read your post: What does "literate in technology" mean to you (there are lots of ways to go with that)? What is the best way to use new technologies to teach kids the basic facts and skills? And what are those skills? How might you weigh the importance of competing in the job market with other educational goals? These are Big Questions in education, and I will look forward to seeing how your thinking about might evolve over the next several weeks.
ReplyDeletejd
After reading the early chapters of Oppenheimer and based on my previous experiences, I question whether technology and education really do need to go hand in hand. I stil believe that our education system needs to focus on teaching rather than trying to incorporate new technologies just because they are available or a school has been given resources for technology.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that technology offers new opportunties for the classroom, such as visuals which ae now available to everyone with just an Internet connection. But I question whether or not teachers are adequatley trained on how to incorporate these new tools into the classroom.
I also value the chalkboard and the tools of the past which sometimes work so much better than the new stuff. As future and current teachers, our challenge is to determine what is the value added of the new technology and is it appropriate for our lesson plans.
And finally, your posting made be think more about the role of our schools in society. I would rather our schools focused more on critical thinking skills rather than technological skills. The school day is so short and our schools can only do so much.
I totally agree with what you said about wanting to teach the basic facts and skills that students would need to succeed in life and that technology is now a big part of that life lesson. It is so funny because my father is a retired CPS teacher who now teaches at Devry. He never worked on a computer a day in his life, doesn't even own a cell phone, and now he teaches at a technical institute. I felt bad for him, so I gave him my old laptop computer because all of his class grade books are online through Devry's website. He calls me up at least once a week with basic computer operation questions that just seem so basic and simple to me, yet talking to him makes me understand just how foreign complicated the concepts can be to some people. The fact that my father has gotten himself wrapped up in this situation has made me realize just how integrated technology is into our everyday lives. It almost seems that some of these technology concepts are soon going to be lumped into what society deems as "common sense".
ReplyDeleteFrank