A Techie or a Luddite?
When you scour for ideas, you find the world is full of them for technology in education. I had not fully realized how badly the establishment is in love with technology. The appeal of new and expensive technology is so blinding that we have to fight with a machete for the essential parameters.
You can’t get far in academic circles these days without the conversation turning to social networking in education. The buzz is: how best to exploit Facebook and MySpace for marketing purposes, what to make of Twitter. Add in the hardware: BlackBerrys, iPhones, and other ever-more-powerful and sophisticated mobile phones. Then there’s YouTube, not a social-networking site per se, but a place where people flock in great numbers and share information.
I’m fascinated and eager to learn about the use of all of these in education, yet somewhat skeptical in my thinking. Yes, a revolution is taking place, and I would be a fool not to take part in it. But just because it is “new” is it “appropriate”?
I am beginning to sound schizophrenic. Am I for Technology or am I not?
This is the rub isn’t it? I am obviously an advocate of technology in education. But I am a bigger advocate of education and learning. Technology without purpose and clearly defined meaning is useless. Not every tool is appropriate for learning. Not every technology should belong in a classroom. It is a difficult task to separate the wheat from the chaff.