What's the Point of All of This, Anyway?

I work with teachers for a living. Training, co-teaching, modeled lessons- you name it. That's my job.

So, working with teachers on a continual basis, I sometimes come into contact with teachers who have a 'less than positive' attitude towards technology. Which, of course, I find disappointing.

Why?

Because they are teaching with blinders on.

It's obvious that they think the world ends at their classroom door. Whatever goes on 'out there' doesn't need to enter into MY classroom or change the way I teach.

Very sad. Because it does.

In the words of Bill Gates- "No one gets to choose if technology will change your life."

Think about that for a minute.

Go back, if you are old enough, to 1995. The fastest modem on a computer was dial up at 56k, and AOL and CompuServe ruled the internet world. Most computers were still desktops- laptops were rare and expensive. No such thing as WiFi everywhere. We had cable, but no TIVO or DVRs- so you couldn't just rewind your TV show in the middle of the broadcast to catch that part you missed. No 'On Demand' movies either- you watched what was on, or got dressed and went down to the video rental store! CD players- not MP3s- were the big thing. No iPods yet- in fact pagers were still more popular than cell phones, so no carrying around a miniature computer that contains your phone, your music and your data.

And that's just barely 15 years. What will happen in the next 15 years that will change our lives so dramatically that we can't begin to think about living without it?

At this point, technology is a part of almost every tool we use- from the Caterpillar used by the 'ditch digger' to the cash register at Burger King to the stud finder in carpentry work. There are 'green collar' jobs in the Technology Industry, as well as technology-infused jobs in every industry. We've all heard of jobs in Industry where the human work force has been replaced by cheaper and easier to maintain robotics. It's difficult to find a job that has not been impacted by technology in the last 20 years.

Unless you look at teaching. And there, many teachers have managed to shut the door on the world- to the detriment of their students.

At one point in the early 1980s, my dad bought one of the first Word Processer computers for his secretary at a major bank. He and another director got into a huge fight- the final comment by the other director was "I'll be hanged if I'm going to see a computer sitting on every desk in this bank!" Really. Looking back, who was on the right side of the information highway? Sounds like some of the teachers I encounter.

As teachers, we need to be more concerned about preparing students for THEIR FUTURE than for our present.

Yes- we need to make sure that they are ready for the SOL tests. But is it possible to use the tools of technology to do it?

When we, as teachers, get to the place where we think of 'technology as chalk'- as the tool to teach the lesson instead of something 'extra' that we need to add to the lesson- then we'll be where we need to be.

And education will have finally caught up with the rest of the world.