NYTimes Article
I have not read the story in the NY Times that Mr. Warlick is repsonding to but only with the following statement you can understand what the article is about:
This really is a profound thought, think about it. Not only is the NYTimes available instantly to billions of people world wide but newspapers like the Regina Leader-Post or the Saskaton Star Pheonix are available as well. Why is it that this resource is not used in the classroom? Remember when the teacher would bring in 25 copies of old newspapers that you would get to pick an article out of and do some reading or writing assignment with? Why don't teachers do this with these online Newpapers? You could still accomplish the same objectives but with current events while keeping the students engaged with the tool of the internet. You could combine English, Social Studies and some sort of Keyboarding into one class, one assignment."What’s good about the “Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops” article, written for The New York Times by Winnie Hu, is that this story was not limited only to people who live within the NYTimes paper delivery area. It was immediately available to readers around the world — including youngsters, sitting at their desks, their laptops open, browsers engaged, accessing and interacting with a global library of content."
As a Business Education major I really think that a necessary for elementry through secondary students to have the skill of keyboarding. (Sorry about going off on a tangent there)
This comment couldn't be more true:
At work today I had a revalation of sorts, and it hits this statement. Today I was helping a "digital immigrant" and it was no surprise when this person paid by debit. However 3 years ago when I started to work here these same "digital imigrants" would NEVER pay by debit, it would be cash and cheques. My thought was that if these immigrants have changed to accept technology when it coems to their money why have the immigrant teachers not changed to accept the technology in the classroom? Even my dad uses a debit card now.“I’ve covered this material perfectly well for twenty years.” They’d say, “Why change now!”
These teachers can't be so oblivious to the changes of the world they live in to not see that their methodologies are outdated can they? This certainly would be an ignorant worldview possed by these educators.
With so many new mediums to use why would a teacher not want to take advantage of these technological advances? Just off the top of my head I can think of a dozne or so mediums to use:
- Searchengines
- Podcasts
- Webpages
- Projectors
- Inspiration
- Excel
- Word
- Imovie
- Photoshop
- Dreamweaver
- DragonNaturally Speaking
- Handwritting recognition
- Videos
- Garage Band
- DVD
- VHS (For some this may be an upgrade)
This quote sends a important question in the air, why are these skills not tested? Are these skills considered not important? Are they considered not necessary? Are they considered easy? Hard? Simple? Complex?"...the skills they are developing: to ask essential questions, research, evaluate, collaborate, process, mix and remix, and publish their findings — learning to be active learners in a rapidly changing world — these skills are not tested."
Reading, Wrinting, Math, and Science are your typically tested subject areas. Without trying to discount this subject areas (as they too are important), why is the technological areas such as IP, Multimedia or Computer Science discounted and considered not important for the average student to know? You could ask a student what a Verb, Period, PEDMAS, and Energy are and they would be able to give you a basic answer but would they be able to tell you what a mail merge is? a pivot table? Java? C++? SQL are? These are equally important concepts as the world moves on to be more and more dependent on computers and technology in general.
I wonder what people were writing about when the pencil replaced the quill?
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