PLN week 2-post 3

At http://www.fischbowl.blogspot.com/an article titled, “Is it Okay to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?” was about well… if it is okay to be a technologically illiterate teacher. In other words can a teacher do their job efficiently without knowing how to work a computer? I don’t think they can in my opinion. With the vast growth and spread of technology in this world how can you teach something on a computer (which is what we are starting to use often in class) if you can’t even work one. As Karl Fisch noted,

“in order to teach it, we have to do it. How can we teach this to kids,
how can we model it, if we aren’t literate ourselves?”

It’s as if you are trying to teach someone to ride a bike, you have to know that you have to pedal to make it go, how we will learn if you can’t teach.

One of my teachers (who I won’t name, because actually trying to pass that class) is very illiterate in technology. In that class we have used a computer or the projection screen almost every day, and we waste about at least 10 minutes of class time waiting for him/her to figure out where the “on” button is. Luckily there are a few kids who know how to use these things thanks to other teachers who have taught us this like they should. In the article he mentioned how he hears many parents almost bragging about how they were/are never good at _____ subject. Same with this teacher of mine he/she is always joking about how he/she doesn’t know about technology because “back in their day” they wrote on stones and if were lucky got a big leaf to do math on. Not to sound rude but I missed where that was our fault? If in my future career a certain requirement is needed that I never learned in school because that wasn’t part of the curriculum then part of my responsibility is to now learn that new skill.

In conclusion whatever the skill or knowledge needed to know at the time, you need to know. If you don’t want to put in the effort to learn that new subject, than I suggest looking into a new career path. As he also stated,

“If a teacher today is not technologically literate- and is unwilling to make
the effort to learn more- it’s equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn’t
know how to read or write.”

Now is it really that drastic? Maybe not, but in a few years I think it will.

“…this is the only four years these students will have at our high school- they
can’t wait for us to figure it out.”