Has Technology forced some teachers to the side?

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Permalink Reply by Theresa Sterling on March 19, 2009 at 9:21am

I don't think it has to be an either/or proposition. These technologies should be seen as additional tools in the classroom to supplement what teachers have been doing. It is NOT doubtful that their boss will ask them to setup an online meeting and prepare work orders using an online database. That is certain.

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Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on March 19, 2009 at 1:38pm

Hi Chris~

I also use technology in the classroom as a way to differentiate and offer different options for different learning styles. I worked for 18 years prior to returning to teaching in the business world where we literally communicated at least 70 percent of the time and used various interfaces to do our work-- all on computers. I believe that it is as likely that a boss will be communicating via tech as not, and that the skills learned by using tech as a teaching tool only add to the necessary skill set in the world today. In my experience, education is one of the last areas where we are really in may ways behind the curve because our profession is not really "market driven". It may be 'scores driven" but we are not hired and fired based on our skills once tenured. In the business world, you get it or you are gone in many cases.

So I guess I also disagree with the premise of the comment made by the teacher. Like it or not, this is the world we live in and it is not changing. Less and less face to face interaction outside the world of tech occurrs. Although it is not the reason I use it, students who are not familiar with the skills and tools used in this world will be at a disadvantage.

I use moodle as a teaching tool and I know that many businesses use systems that are a very similar premise. "Content management" exists in most businesses. Folks who have been teaching their entire careers, or for a long time may just not be aware of it!

Thanks for the opportunity to chat about this.

Sue

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Permalink Reply by Kev on March 19, 2009 at 6:13pm

Ask him what job will require his students to know any of the material he teaches.

I teach social studies myself and I guarantee my kids won't use any of the actual curriculum I teach them :p

I would much rather they learn how to learn in my classroom and the fact is we'll be using technology to learn for the foreseeable future.

Can kids learn the "old" way? Of course they can. But they can generally learn more efficiently and effectively with technology.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on March 19, 2009 at 7:58pm

Chris, I don't care whether it's 'old fashioned' to side with your colleague or not but I agree with him. I've taught gifted kids K-6 for 25 years and I get much deeper, more thoughtful, and more reflective insights from my kids when we have a discussion face to face than I ever do in writing. Let me know if you want me to elaborate.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Lehr on March 19, 2009 at 8:37pm

I think that a face to face discussion is always the best case scenario but that isn't always possible. By using the various technologies you can get more students to respond that don't always respond in class. When you have at least 100 kids in class, these technologies are very valuable.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Mooney on March 20, 2009 at 8:09am

All of these are valid points, and I'm glad to see we can discuss them in such a civil forum. I'm not trying to stir the pot, but open the lines of communication. As a technology teacher I see the utility in many of these new tools. However, when we start discussing cell phones as responder devices or communication facilitation devices, I become a bit leery of the idea that we may be creating a generation of adapters who find themselves so wedded to the technology that basic conversation falls by the wayside. I also hold a Social Studies endorsement and the concept of teacher as facilitator holds promise, but as I see more and more literature about doing away with the brick and mortar establishments, I wonder if we are doing our students a disservice. It certainly makes classroom management easier, but our we abandoning established routines in favor of newer toys? I utilize WordPress to keep my class informed, but its really a fallback so that my students can' use the excuse,"I didn't know that was due." I use Sketchup to allow students to bring their imaginations to reality in graphical form. I use Alice to give students a taste of programming.I encourage students to find an issue and then use Blogger to discuss it. However, I still find the most vocational promise in office applications such as Word, PP or Excel.

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Permalink Reply by James O'Reilly on March 20, 2009 at 10:19am

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Permalink Reply by James O'Reilly on March 20, 2009 at 11:15am

Journal of Medical Internet Research
- Web-Assisted Tobacco Interventions
http://www.jmir.org/2008/5

Check the Use Case
- Multimedia Mobile Phone–Based Youth Smoking Cessation Intervention
http://www.jmir.org/2008/5/e49/HTML

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Permalink Reply by James O'Reilly on March 20, 2009 at 11:17am

Mixed Reality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality

http://www.twine.com/item/11jx17q49-25y/mirtle-project

http://research.sun.com/sunlabsday/docs.2008/MiRTLE.pdf

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Permalink Reply by Ann E Darling on March 20, 2009 at 3:15pm

I think our students are going to have to diversify. Each method of communication has important skills to learn. Remember when you are trying to support or defend an opinion face to face, you get to use more tools that appeal to the emotional sides of an argument (facial expressions, body language, tone of voice). With a text based argument you can think and revise before you submit, but you don't have much to work with besides bold text or caps to reinforce a point.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Bearson on March 20, 2009 at 3:32pm

I think he has a point. While students will need to know how to connect to each other and accomplish business online, the fact is that many students already use these tools compulsively for social reasons. Where will students learn to read faces, body language, etc. When we engage in a compulsive behavior (e.g.internet addictions) what are we sacrificing in terms of real learning and growth? I this Social Studies teacher senses that something is missing.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on March 20, 2009 at 4:13pm

I say this every time this discussion comes up, but I'll say it again. IMHO most of what kids 12-25 do with technology outside of school is really low level stuff--txting, IM, downloading pirated movies and music, uploading videos of body parts and fights in the girls bathroom to YouTube, ipodding, podcasting, Skyping, Facebooking, MySpacing. This stuff does not take a degree in rocket scientist. I'm sure there are some high school teachers who are seeing ground breaking stuff done with technology but I thinking the outside of school stuff that has marked these kids as 'digital natives' is not so much!

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