Thing 5 - Teaching 2.0

All of the 2.0 references and articles simply mean that education is adapting to the world of growing technology around us. When I was an Undergraduate in 2004 at JSU we had very limited use of technology as I do here in graduate school at APSU. Such tools as Livetext, D2L, and now with this blog project have not only made learning more fun and easier to me but as has shown me that there is so much available to us all. To be able to use these tools and resources in our future classrooms is going to be a must as we, as a society, become more dependant on technology. This can make education easier in that communication will all students if they are homebound or sitting in the classroom possible. You will be able to assign group work and projects with the students working together over the web and not having to be in the same location to complete tasks. On the downside are we making our children to dependant on technology and encouraging them to be less social and involved? Technology is great but we, as a society, must establish the balance between using these resources as a tool or as a crutch. Sometime the face to face meeting or instruction is better in that we can convey our message directly withoout any confussion while other times just talking to others helps us grow as people. I, for one, would be lost without our current "toys" but it still schocked me to go into a fourth grade classroom while student teaching in a math class and see students that could not do simple calculations without the calculator. This troubled me in that will these children be able to do anything, not just math, without the use of some type of tech available? Once again though, if properly used and overseen, these tools are great resources that can make our classrooms a more fluid place to be in. Anytime you have something at your disposal that will make your job or life easier you should learn to use it to the fullest advantage.