I just found this pretty interesting article on Newsweek. It's from 2006 but it is still very relevant to today. Basically, the author talks about how the emphasis we place on technology (and science) education can detract from other subject areas, namely the humanities. She argues that all this attention away from actual people and onto machines is creating a generation of people who are out of touch with one another.
I don't necessarily agree with her whole argument...But this does relate back to the ideas in my previous post a bit (or at least the ideas I was trying to formulate) about how too much emphasis on technology makes it easy to sort of forget 'the basics.'
As a future social studies teacher, I plan to teach my students to view the world with a sympathetic and open mind. Actually, using technology will probably make th
is even easier. One of my favorite websites is the National Geographic page. This resource really opens up a classroom to the world...
images retrieved from National Geographic
Getting back to technology in the classroom: I guess overall I am obviously conflicted about the necessary level of integration. Probably a lot of this stems from the fact that I have not actually taught yet. Some current teachers in my program tell me stories about how the most sophisticated form of technology in their classroom is an overhead projector. I hear others saying that their school libraries are almost completely digital--they would have to loan books from other libraries if they want them.
These teachers seem to do fine in their classroom with whatever level of technology they have. I suppose I will just have to learn by experience as well.
This video clip is something I saw while doing another assignment for IT--it's just a really awesome example of how one classroom worked on a great project together and then posted it to the web to inspire others!
