Games, Gadgets, and Gizmos

Do you have the latest app? Are your students using it to its fullest potential? Do you teach or has technology replaced you as the content expert?

See where I'm going with this? Yep, I said it; technology is not the answer to all of the problems we face as educators, in and out of the classroom.

Do you believe that the learners of today are that much different from you when you were their age? Probably not, they may be more distracted, but taken as a whole I'd be willing to place a small bet that when it comes down to how they learn that nothing much has changed!

So, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Seriously, what do you think? If today's learners are not much different than you and I, then we should be able to help them learn. Yes, help them to learn how to learn! It's the old story rearing its head; you know the story, give a man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish.

Technology is fantastic at displaying and providing access to facts, i.e., content. But it does not and will not replace good teaching; at least not for the foreseeable future. That is, not until the software learns how to adapt to a learner and revise and rearrange the materials and lessons constantly, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, etc., will the technology compete with the teacher.

For now and for the foreseeable future we can count on one truism, i.e., "A Good Teacher Is A Good Teacher" and NO amount of technology can replace the experience of a good teacher, you know, one that knows how to teach!

My two-cents,
Carl