Prensky makes some good points about Technology in Education. After reading the article I had a few comments and questions of my own.
I agree with allowing students to type their assignments. I feel that their work will be more efficient and better quality as well as easier on the student.
The author made a comment about allowing students to use cell phones and cell phone cameras in learning. I don't understand how this would be beneficial to students. Cell phones and cell phone cameras are purely for communication in my opinion and would not be beneficial in a learning environment. I would be interested in seeing a teacher integrate them in a good way.
I agree with the idea that using technology will better education. I think people learn by what is familiar to them and in society today technology is what is familiar to our youth.
However, I do think that technology has gone to far when there is no longer communication with a teacher face to face. I think students need that relationship and availability.
Is Instant Messenger a good or a bad thing in education? I am unsure to the answer of this question. I don't understand how a teacher would use instant messenger in a learning environment. I see it as a communication device and not exactly useful in a learning environment but, I would be open and interested in seeing how it could be used.
I completely agree with the paragraph talking about new things in new ways. I think that students today are begging for a new way of teaching and in order to teach them best it is important to take that into consideration. If we as educators don't pay attention to the needs of our students and our ever changing environment we will fail to teach effectively.
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I read this same article and I had a lot of the same opinions. I was really confused, as well, as to why the author thought IM and cell phones should be used in the classroom to assist in learning. However, I think that if a teacher can come up with a way to make these beneficial then why not use them in education. For instance, students could create chat rooms to discuss a topic brought up in class that day. They could have a set time to begin and a minimum length. One student could then print off the conversation and turn it into the teacher the next day to prove they participate, or the teacher could participate himself. There are a lot of options that I didn't think of at first, but I realized you can't limit technology to just the classroom for an hour.
While I am all for learning using technology, it is slowly killing our language. Think about it.
Good point Brad!
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