The question was posed in Karl Fisch's blog: Is It Okay to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher? Though I had mixed emotinos through his argument, and he had many valid reasonings for it to be NOT okay to have a Technologically Illiterate Teacher, I have to dissagree with him, and say, yes. It is okay even in 2008 to be a technologically illiterate teacher.
He states: "... [A]fter immigrants have been in a country for a while, they become natives. We've had personal computers for 30 years, and I was using computers in my teaching back in 1975. How long does it take for someone to wake up to the fact that technology is part of life, not an add-on?" I agree that technology is a part of life, however, there is so much more to life than a computer, or technology. It is my personal experience that there are so many things that can go wrong with computers, or different kinds of technology, that if you use the equipment, and something goes wrong, there's no quick fix, and you would have been better off not using it in the first place.
Next, he talks about in parent teacher conferences how the parent would state: "'I was never any good at math either.'" He says to this: "While I don't doubt the truth of the statement, it was the fact that they said it and almost seemed proud of it that bothered me (and of course the message it sent to their student). I can't imagine a parent saying "Oh, yeah, I never learned how to read" and being proud of it. It seemed like there was a different standard for math - not knowing math was socially acceptable, not knowing how to read was very unacceptable." To me, math, reading and technology are so different, they are not worth compairing. What may be worth compairing are math, calculators and computers. Calculators are technology, but are we supposed to teach kids to stop thinking, and let the technology think for them? To me it is the same with computers. The basics to everything are: math, reading and writing. THESE building blocks made computers and other technology work, along with maybe some science.
I know that I am not good at math, and I am certainly NOT proud of that. However, I think it's good to atleast admit your weaknesses, because only when you recognize your weaknesses can you make them strengths. I believe it is different with technology though. Not every where you go do you need to know how to work a computer or a piece of high tech equipment. Math skills, reading, and writing are what we have surrounding us every day. Mr. Fisch stated something about having 2020 vision; looking to the year 2020 with the right perspective of technology. I do not believe in the year 2020 that computers and technology will take over so much that if we don't know anything about computers we will not be able to be successful. There are still so many careers that do not deal soley with computers and high tech equipment. I recognize that computers may be used, but used in a way that shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to do simple tasks a computer.
Mr. Fisch posts a statement: "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 and write." I disagree completely with this statement for reasons mostly stated above, which is that we still have to read to figure out things on a computer, we need to read to do our work, we need to read to be successful in life. It is my opinion that we don't need computers to live life. They may help us minutely, but they will not take over and be as major as reading. So I feel that it is not as important to be "technologically literate".
*Please note my spell check is not working for blogger so I am not able to check my spelling. Yet another reason I do not like computers: they do not work how they are supposed to every time.
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