“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”This semester, I am taking a class called Computers as a Teacher’s Aide. It’s been somewhat interesting.
~ Charles Darwin
At the beginning of the class, the professor asked us what would make the class boring for us. I responded by writing that if the class was geared to absolute neophytes in MS Office products, which is what we’re learning about, I would be bored. Sadly, most of the students (most of whom are under 25) are neophytes, and can’t keep up with the projects or lectures in class. Luckily, I learn at least one new thing each class, which keeps my attention engaged enough to be able to stay awake through class. This week, I learned about that cool little marker tool in PowerPoint, that you can use to mark up slides in the middle of a presentation. Never noticed that before.
I’ve been pondering why I am the most technologically literate person in the class, as a 50-year-old returning non-traditional student. I am shocked at how non-proficient the younger students are, since in my family, the younger the sibling, the more technologically proficient we grew to be. I didn’t have computers in the home before I hit young adulthood. My youngest brother grew up with an Apple 2c.
Taking this class has led me on a time-consuming and fascinating path to discovering exactly what is out there on the new internet: a wealth of tools that I never dreamed about, a Pandora’s Box of ways for my children to get themselves in trouble without education and supervision (which NONE of them are receiving at school) and an amazing array of ideas that can revolutionize education.
And what are the teachers that I meet saying about these tools? “Why do we need them? Children learn just fine without them.” or “It’s just too much trouble to learn how to do this.” And our children are merrily marching off to a future that we can’t even begin to dream of, and will work in jobs that haven’t yet been created, doing work that hasn’t yet been invented, using tools that are unimaginable to us today.
Today, I got lost in cyberspace, reading a wiki on education and technology.
Tomorrow, and for the rest of my days as a teacher, I will be thinking about the implications of all the new technology on how I will teach. I am already writing a paper on how to use wikis to facilitate group writing projects.
I am glad to be alive in today’s world, with all its glorious potential.
“The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
~ Alvin Toffler
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