This week, I have chosen an article entitled "Technology as a Fence and a Bridge" for my literature review. I chose this because it really talks about how using technology in the classroom is not simply a technological revoluation; it is a social revolution. These students have grown up with technology in their lives--"digital natives"--and that is not going to change. What does this do to teachers? Classrooms? Education? When one can find all the information they need in their living room, does it make these traditional learning channels irrelevant and useless?
In my mind, it doesn't; however, as the article states, we have to understand and embrace these things. Social networking, ipods, cell phones. These things are what are important to today's students, and yet instead of accepting and understanding them, they are being banned. How are we to reach out to students and teach them, it asks, if we are not even trying to take interest in what their lives are now about?
The author Bryan Wehrli talks about technology as transformative disruption. This isn't a bad thing--disruption creates change, and this is exactly what schools and clasrooms need. It is this disruption that is causing so many to re-examine classrooms and realize that the same model that has been used for 100 years is no longer the best way to teach this generation. It isn't just about technology--it's about individualized needs of students, it's about student-centered learning--things that work in the classroom. If it's taken the disruption of technology for people to examine these things, then maybe it's an even better thing than we thought.
Reference: Technology as a Fence and a Bridge, Author(s): Bryan Wehrli
Source: Horace Summer 2009, Vol. 25 No. 1
http://www.essentialschools.org/cs/cespr/view/ces_res/615
