I loved this article, I thought the statistics it provided were great, and astounding. The diagram 1.1 was really interesting and showed the rapid progression of technology that I experienced over the course of my lifetime. Alvin Toffler's Wave Theory was interesting too, because after seeing how quickly we have progressed in the last 10 years it does seem to only take months at a time for some new fad to take off. However, after finishing it I find myself having mixed feelings about my own opinion on how much technology is too much, and if it all has a purpose in our classrooms.
The pretend lesson the author created with avatar's was incredible. I think students would be really into doing something like that, learning wouldn't even feel like learning, and most students have access to the internet at home so it wouldn't be a problem. I understand that incorporating technology into our classrooms will better hold the attention of our students, and as the article said, they have no problem keeping up or getting distracted because it was almost as if they were born to multitask, but are we encouraging something negative?
One father said that in order to talk to his daughter he had to text her, that he had to go "into her world to get to her". I think that is beyond ridiculous! When she needs to get a job, her employer is not going to go into her world to get her. How is she going to learn to work with other people? Why would we encourage this type of seclusion?! It's frowned upon in jails for prisoners, but we think it's okay for our children because they're sharing pictures of what they're doing every ten minutes with the world? What about the health affects this is going to have on their generation? I know this has nothing to do with learning, but we learn so we can go farther and make the most of life, but what if were not healthy enough to take full advantage of this knowledge? Maybe it's a stretch, but were cutting gym classes, and my senior year of high school I had to write a paper for gym! I feel like through all of this we lose what life is about, getting up and doing something, and instead we get up and post about it.. or take a picture of it. We don't talk to people, we just put words on people's screens. Kind of like right now, I don't know if anyone feels the same, or feels the complete opposite unless they post a comment about it.
I do believe that bringing more technology would be beneficial to students, and it would help them want to learn what ever they are being taught. I think it would be more relatable and they would resist it less. I just don't think we would be teaching anything more then what's in the lesson. No people skills, work skills, or life skills. Just school skills, and for some of us, school is just 18 out of 100 years of living.
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