Watching PBS (and not because I had to)

I was flipping through the HD channels of my wonderful new 50 inch Plasma television (another realm of amazing and ever changing technology), and since there are far fewer HD channels to choose from, I stumbled upon a special on PBS about the Internet.  The special was intriguing because it gave numerous real life examples of the goods, the bads, and the uglies of the Internet on society, families and individuals.  I always have looked at the Internet as a necessary evil, but now as I start to look at the Internet as a teacher, and now I feel I need to learn to try to teach children the goods and bads of the Internet.  I think myself, like many others, see the Internet as a world of vast information, and that is true, but for the younger generation it is a world of no boundaries and a social experiment that is growing and evolving by the second.  I think my biggest concern with the Internet is trying to regulate it in some fashion.  The problem is that what I just said sounds good, but in actuality, it seems impossible.  The technology and knowledge of people and children who have grown up on the net is amazing and at time scary.  I want to use my experiences and knowledge to try and utilize the Internet and its vast opportunities to expand and make learning for children fun and exciting.

     Another issue that arose in my new journey of using or utilizing technology as a teacher, arose after doing the reading by Robert Taylor.  The excerpt from his book talked about the use of the computer,  as a tool, a tutor or a tutee.  I found this even more ambiguous in that all three have a useful aspect, yet it seems impossible to gain and sustain enough knowledge to utilize the computer fro all three areas.  I see the computer as the tutee as the most helpful, yet it forces the teacher to poses the ability to program, which seems way to far out of my league.  So, at this point, early in my journey, I know I need technology, I want more mastery on technology, yet I still feel like technology is to fast and to complicated for me to effectively use on a consistent and appropriate basis.  So, the journey continues……..

Technology- Scary or Cool?

Today was my second day of Graduate school after 8 years away from college and working in the “real world”.  I consider myself a relatively technologically competent person, but after our first class, I am not sure that I am.  I have an MP3 player, Sirius radio, a laptop, a computer, a cell phone and a TV in almost every room in my house.  The problem is, in class we watched a video about technology and how it is growing and it blew my mind.  I can not believe how fast things in this world are changing.  I knew things had changed last summer when my wives niece (8)and nephew(12) came to a family dinner and they came with a portable DVD player, 2 cell phones an ipod and some electronic pet thing.  I asked them why they were not out side playing on such a beautiful day and they both looked at me like I was an idiot and said that it was boring outside.  I was very upset by this comment because when I was a kid we would spend countless hours outside with no technological gadgets to entertain us.  Now that I look back on this day I see that I am acting just like my parents and their parents before them by ostracizing the younger generation where I, especially as a new educator, need to try to embrace and utilize the new technologies to help make learning interesting for the next generation.  I guess the old saying is true, “if you cant beat them, join them”.  I guess its time for me to catch up with the times, lets just hope I’m ready!!!!