Are We Teaching to Create Future Dinosaurs?

Now that the ELD club had ended, I am in full force preparation for my master's thesis, which, you guessed it, its about this blog and the use of technology in the classroom.

Through the past few month of keeping this blog, I've been so thrilled by the tremendous positive feedback I've received from my students, other teachers, my colleagues and even people I've never even met before. Aside from providing gratification and encouragement, all of these positive responses led me to believe, even deeper, in the reasons for why I wanted to start this blog in my classroom in the first place.

Technology is such a huge element of our lives today, we cannot pretend that our students are neither part of nor being effected by its constant evolution. Knowing the significant role that technology plays in everyday lives, higher education and work places, it feels even more wrong for me to not prepare our students for this ever-so crucial skill demanded by the current and future lifestyle.

Clearly, from my experience with the upkeep of this blog, I've become more and more inseparable with the idea of infusing the use and exploration of technology into everyday teaching. I am not arguing that technology should be taught in school at the expense of teaching math and reading. In reality, for most of us, technology is used as a modern tool to express and communicate. That is exactly what my goal is: to teach technology in the way that it is represented in reality, not as a new subject to dictate as part of a school day's schedule on the board. Just as adults use it everday, I believe our students should also be taught the use of technology as a tool to express and communicate, rather than as a subject that requires too much dictated instruction. Of course, in order to become free and flexible in the use of technology as an everyday tool, some direct instruction and drill style practice such as the basic skill of typing, as I mentioned in an earlier posting, will still be necessary.

Overall, it is time that we, who care for and want to contribute to the education of our children, recognize that we will no longer be doing our kids justice if the only preparation we give them is based off a list of skills that reflects only the demands of life as we were kids. To teach and prepare our children for the future that they will grow up in, we must push ourselves to think beyond our comfort zone and update our skills and our To-Teach list in order to reflect the present and future demands of life.

For preparation of my thesis, I need to find related researches and articles to read and reference. If you know of any, let me know! :)