A novel idea.
Posted by enckc on June 14, 2007
I was thinking the other day. I know, that is a scary thing. But, nonetheless I was thinking that there isn’t anything we, as teachers, can do about change. It will happen, whether we want it to or not; whether we like it or not. This is especially true with technology. It changes daily. New programs are distrubuted, network upgrades are defined, OS’s are released, new hardware is invented. This trend will probably continue for years to come. So, change happens.
But, the funny thing is, at the crossroads of technology and education, we are always behind. Technology changes and months later, education may be introduced to it. So, for as much as we don’t always like having to learn new technologies all the time, we really are behind with what we do learn. Take this blog for example. Blogging has been hot for a few years. Its been said that a new blog is born every .5 seconds. But, how long has blogging been hot in education? Not that long. So, while we may complain about technology, if we don’t use what’s available to better serve our students, teach them the way they learn rather than the way we learned, we are doing a disservice to our future society. We’re already behind, just by the nature of education. It is always playing “catch-up” with the rest of the business world. By resisting change, particularly in technology, aren’t we falling further behind?
August 8th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Education is behind in a number of ways. When you teach “Business Ed.” it’s hard to ignore technology because your curriculum is not valid unless they can go into the business world and be effective employees. This will be difficult if you don’t have practice using the technology used in the business world.
August 8th, 2007 at 11:10 am
You’re so right, Chris! We have to discipline ourselves to continuously update our knowledge so that we can better prepare our students. You put it so well when you said, “…teach them the way they learn rather than the way we learned.”
August 8th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Many students would find blogging in education to be great. Blogging in education would need to be monitored for content if the sch dist wants to continue its no bullying philosophy. Since the students like to do and say what they want when they want, appropriate blogging for education could be quite a challenge.