Are Our Schools Doing Enough?

      This week we were asked to watch the video Learning to Change-Changing to Learn. It was a very interesting video that I suggest you watch (just click on the title and it will take you to the site). One eye-opening moment in that video for me was the opening statement which said that the Department of Commerce ranked the I.T. intensiveness level of different industry sectors and Education was ranked number fifty-five, below that of coal mining. In the discussions our class had everyone agreed that our schools are not integrating technology into the school system enough. It has just not been a priority. We also agreed that the students of today are already immersed in technology at home by texting, email, and social media sites and that schools and teachers need to "catch up". What we need to do as teachers is find ways to incorporate technology into the classroom so that learning will become more interesting and so our students will be more prepared for the future. 
       “If we want to engage students in learning, we need to first understand their world. This world is without borders, boundaries, and is limited only by the speed of one’s internet access.” (Solomon, Schrum). Schools today do not understand this concept. They spend too much time teaching to the test and not preparing students for real life. As one of the speakers said in the video, jobs now days are looking for workers who can create, find, validate, synthesize, use, and problem solve with technology (Learning to Change-Changing to Learn).  So students need to have these skills. When we test our students on a standardize test of facts we are not preparing them for the real work world. On the flip side, teachers need to teach traditional skills that technology has made our students in danger of losing such as grammar and spelling skills, handwriting, and how to do simple math without a calculator. I hope to have my classroom one that gives the students the opportunities they need to learn with technology and become prepared. I truly do believe that “educators are agents of change” (Solomon, Schrum) so as teachers, if we want to see our students succeed, we have a responsibility to teach technology to our students.


Quotes sited from:
Solomon, Gwen. Schrum, Lynne. Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. Washington, D.C. International Society for Technology in Education. 2007
Learning to Change, Changing to Learn  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahTKdEUAPk