Educational Technology and its Uses…

"We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us." Marshall McLuhan

      The role technology plays in our lives and its ramifications for life and learning should be discussed and debated in order to provide thought, balance, and insight into how and why it is used. Educational technologies should be thoroughly analyzed and understood by the intent, which should be a research-based tool that can increase student achievement. Formative articles that have contributed to my pursuit of this degree include Nicholas Carr's article in The Atlantic Monthly, written in July/Aug 2008, called "Is Google Making Us Stupid," which discusses how the digital revolution is impacting they way people think. William Deresiewicz wrote an article titled "The End of Solitude" in January 2009's Chronicle of Higher Education, which discusses how social networking and other technologies are creating an environment where solitude and contemplation is disappearing from our increasingly digital and connected world. Also in March of 2009 Educational Leadership published an article by Maryanne Wolf and Mirit Barzillai called "The Importance of Deep Reading" that discusses the implications of literacy in an increasingly digital world and its impact on deep thinking and contemplation. I don't think that the educational world should completely accept all technologies without proper caution because the implications for the way it reshapes how we live and how we learn are still unknown.

     I enjoy communicating by introducing quotes that communicate effectively what I am feeling. Relying on the insights of the giants who have gone before us is important as we move forward. Lewis Mumford wrote: 

"Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences." 

In many ways this is true and we must be thoughtful about how and where integrate technology. The current debate between Partnership for 21^st Century Skills and the Common Core movement is a healthy trend that we should be grappling with as educators. I am not saying that technology is not important; however every new technology that is used in educational circles is marketed in various degrees of intensity. Katie Ash raises a point in her blog about eLearning Update that not all programs are created equal. This statement can be said about all educational technologies, and we as instructors must always realize that before we use it in the classroom.



Books:


Birkerts, S. (1994). The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Ballantine Books.

Editor, Jacobs, H.H. (2010). Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World. Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development Publications.

Articles:

Carr, Nicholas. (2008, July/August). Is Google making us stupid. Atlantic Monthly, 56-63. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Deresiewicz, William. (2009, January). The end of solitude. Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(21), 6. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/The-End-of-Solitude/3708

Halverson, R. & Smith, A. (2009). How new technologies have (and have not) changed teaching and learning in schools. Journal of Computing in Teacher Educaton, (26)2, 49-54. Retrieved from http://crste.org/images/Halverson_Smith_How_New_Technologies.pdf

Webliography:
http://p21.org/ : Promotes various technology skills and advocates for technology skills that is equal to content

http://commoncore.org/: Philosophically against Partnership for 21^st Century Skills movement stating content is more important than technology

http://www.edweek.org/dd/ : Digital Directions is a website committed to educational technology sponsored by Education Week and it is a useful resource for research and information about educational technology

http://www.edutopia.org/ : A website committed to what works in education.