Revised Educational Philosophy

The definition of Educational Technology is broad and encompasses a vast description of technological tools and applications that many of us use in our everyday lives whether at work, home, school or just about anywhere else in the world. Wikipedia’s definition states, “Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources." It has opened up a world of resourses to Teacher’s, parent’s and student’s with all the benefits of learning, exploring, and creating, however there are challenges that come with it for teacher’s and parent’s too. The article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, by Marc Prensky gives us some excellent examples of the positive and negative aspects when he talks about the gap in learning that has been created between teacher’s and their student’s because of the differences in the ways these two generations grew up. His description of a “Digital Native” being “these “new” student’s of today…….the “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet.” In fact, most student’s in the upper grade level’s are probably better than the adult’s who surround them at all of these tools, as a direct result of the number of years of practice,versus those adult’s who are at the front of the classroom instructing them. We are quite simply stumped at some of the abilities of our student’s, and even our own children exhibit. The speed with which they are able to access information alone, much less the diversity, and skill levels are sometimes far superior to those who were brought up on books, magazines, and other paper resources. Author Marc Prensky calls those individual who were brought up on the pre-digital age of books, magazines, tapes, and television the “Digital Immigrants”, and we are playing catch up to our own student’s. It is the “legacy” content of our own learning that we are stuggling to overcome so that we can be better “future”content Teachers. We are being challenged not only by our student’s but by society, and the world at hand to become better Educator’s and to meet the demand of our student’s. It must be crossed this ‘Great Divide’, the barrier to learning, if we are to meet these demands. Wow what I have learned about Educational Technology over the last 7 weeks has been amazing. I feel like a whole new world has been opened up for me as a teacher, and I can not wait to begin to use this new found information in my classroom today and in the future. The wiki page has so many uses where do I begin, and I think the best was saved for last with the Google applications. The calendar is a great tool for teachers and I plan on using it immediately, as well as getting my students to use it for posting assignments and keeping track of who has turned in what. The world of technolgy is a wonderful way to get students involved in learning and collaborating with their teacher, other students, and even their parents. I see this technology as a whole new way of educating students and one in which teachers must utilize to keep up with the techno savy students in our classrooms today.