One can be a technophile or a technophobic, or in my humble opinion, a technofool! One word means to have a love of technology, another is to have a fear of technology, and the last is to be foolish (as in the stupid sense!) about technology.
Now that I have your attention, I must admit that I made up the last word--"technofool," but I wanted to make the point that our American culture isn't always wise in the use of technology.
If I were in charge of the world, we would begin teaching the proper use of technology in elementary school around the third grade and then weave it into the curriculum--perhaps in the odd years--getting more and more sophisticated about what we teach concerning technology as the kids get in high school.
Of course, first we, as a society, have to decide on the proper use of technology. And we need to decide on some truths about technology. Let's start with the basic question: What is the purpose of technology? Does technology always make our lives easier or better?
No, technology doesn't always make our lives easier. When we got computers in education, we teachers were told that they would really help in averaging our grades. But at first, we had to basically create our own grading programs--sort of like writing your own computer program! That was hard to do.
Then years later, the school grading system became more standardized, but the schools kept changing computer grading programs every other year, so that we teachers had to keep learning a new program. That was hard to do.
At one point, I just wanted to go back to the calculator and hand-written report cards! They were easier to do!
Secondly, technology doesn't automatically make things better just because it is technology.
There is now a grading program which reports continual grades to parents. Sounds good, doesn't it? To be able to just log in and check your kid's grades. But those grading programs can be misleading because teachers aren't constant grading and recording machines--we do stop to plan lessons and to teach on occasion!-- and because a major project or test grade could skew the average rather dramatically.
Before I retired from teaching in 2010, the really "in-thing" in teaching was presenting information on PowerPoint presentations in the classroom. So most teachers were using or converting their information to PowerPoint, but really how boring for the students to go into classroom after classroom to PowerPoint presentation after PowerPoint presentation!
Of course, not long ago we had gone from chalkboards and overhead projectors to white boards. And now it's on to big TV screens and to smart boards. But really, technology hasn't made good old basic teaching and learning any easier. It still takes plain hard work and time and effort, which technology may have actually harmed in us.
For instance, whether I am presenting the concept of "using transitional words in essays" on a chalkboard, an overhead projector, a white board, or in a PowerPoint presentation, whether the words are in a textbook or on a computer or TV screen, the students still have to buy into the idea of the concept's importance, to work hard to grasp the meaning of each transitional word, to commit to memory some of the words, and to transfer the learning into their essays. It's all the same basic idea!
Finally, using technology for technology's sake or just because everyone else is doing it is just plain foolish! Technology should be used to make things easier or better or to improve or simplify things in some way. If it complicates things, then don't use it.
For example, if a smartphone simplifies or improves your life, then by all means, use it and pay its monthly bill. But if it causes you to feel pressured to constantly be checking your email or Facebook or whatever or if you can't afford it, then that is complicating and stressing your life, so why not just go back to a vintage phone and check email at your desk computer? Simplify your life!
One of our greatest thinkers, Henry David Thoreau, encourages us to "Simplify, simplify." He further questions us, "Why should we be in such hurry and waste of life? . . . The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation . . . A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. . . Why should we be in such a desperate haste . . . and in such desperate enterprises?" I believe that Thoreau would call much of our technology "desperate enterprises" of a desperate people.
We are constantly bombarded by technology--much of it is good and helpful--but some of it is just a waste of time and our precious lives. Our brains are still greater and more powerful than any computer if we but use them to find wisdom in our use of technology. Thoreau further tells us, "It is the characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."
In my next post about technology, I will suggest a curriculum for our schools to thread into their classes from elementary through high school, from safety to good manners. It is a real need in our changing times.
Now that I have your attention, I must admit that I made up the last word--"technofool," but I wanted to make the point that our American culture isn't always wise in the use of technology.
If I were in charge of the world, we would begin teaching the proper use of technology in elementary school around the third grade and then weave it into the curriculum--perhaps in the odd years--getting more and more sophisticated about what we teach concerning technology as the kids get in high school.
Of course, first we, as a society, have to decide on the proper use of technology. And we need to decide on some truths about technology. Let's start with the basic question: What is the purpose of technology? Does technology always make our lives easier or better?
No, technology doesn't always make our lives easier. When we got computers in education, we teachers were told that they would really help in averaging our grades. But at first, we had to basically create our own grading programs--sort of like writing your own computer program! That was hard to do.
Then years later, the school grading system became more standardized, but the schools kept changing computer grading programs every other year, so that we teachers had to keep learning a new program. That was hard to do.
At one point, I just wanted to go back to the calculator and hand-written report cards! They were easier to do!
Secondly, technology doesn't automatically make things better just because it is technology.
There is now a grading program which reports continual grades to parents. Sounds good, doesn't it? To be able to just log in and check your kid's grades. But those grading programs can be misleading because teachers aren't constant grading and recording machines--we do stop to plan lessons and to teach on occasion!-- and because a major project or test grade could skew the average rather dramatically.
Before I retired from teaching in 2010, the really "in-thing" in teaching was presenting information on PowerPoint presentations in the classroom. So most teachers were using or converting their information to PowerPoint, but really how boring for the students to go into classroom after classroom to PowerPoint presentation after PowerPoint presentation!
Of course, not long ago we had gone from chalkboards and overhead projectors to white boards. And now it's on to big TV screens and to smart boards. But really, technology hasn't made good old basic teaching and learning any easier. It still takes plain hard work and time and effort, which technology may have actually harmed in us.
For instance, whether I am presenting the concept of "using transitional words in essays" on a chalkboard, an overhead projector, a white board, or in a PowerPoint presentation, whether the words are in a textbook or on a computer or TV screen, the students still have to buy into the idea of the concept's importance, to work hard to grasp the meaning of each transitional word, to commit to memory some of the words, and to transfer the learning into their essays. It's all the same basic idea!
Finally, using technology for technology's sake or just because everyone else is doing it is just plain foolish! Technology should be used to make things easier or better or to improve or simplify things in some way. If it complicates things, then don't use it.
For example, if a smartphone simplifies or improves your life, then by all means, use it and pay its monthly bill. But if it causes you to feel pressured to constantly be checking your email or Facebook or whatever or if you can't afford it, then that is complicating and stressing your life, so why not just go back to a vintage phone and check email at your desk computer? Simplify your life!
One of our greatest thinkers, Henry David Thoreau, encourages us to "Simplify, simplify." He further questions us, "Why should we be in such hurry and waste of life? . . . The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation . . . A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. . . Why should we be in such a desperate haste . . . and in such desperate enterprises?" I believe that Thoreau would call much of our technology "desperate enterprises" of a desperate people.
We are constantly bombarded by technology--much of it is good and helpful--but some of it is just a waste of time and our precious lives. Our brains are still greater and more powerful than any computer if we but use them to find wisdom in our use of technology. Thoreau further tells us, "It is the characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."
In my next post about technology, I will suggest a curriculum for our schools to thread into their classes from elementary through high school, from safety to good manners. It is a real need in our changing times.
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