During the introduction, at the end of the first UTube video we viewed a man made the comment that "this is the death of education, but the dawn of learning...". As an educator, I find that I struggle to balance my traditional tendencies and the push for more innovative technology use in academics. I understand that children/students today need to understand and become efficient users of technology, because this is the reality of the world that they live in and will be living in for the rest of their lives. But when I hear of things like schools that have taken their entire library of real books and created a digital library, eliminating students' direct physical access to books, I wonder what happened to the value of being able to hold literature in your hands and experience books this way. I think that technology allows students and educators unlimited access and opportunities to so many things that are, at this time, beyond my comprehension, yet I want to find a way to continue to encourage students to value the more traditional methods of learning, while fostering their technological growth.
I work with students who already struggle with social situations and experiences, and to allow them to continually avoid social situations by hiding behind their laptops and not interacting socially and learning what it means to be a member of society, seems wrong to me. I know that it is our job as educators to teach them these skills as well, but it has been hard for me to get beyond this. This is probably one of the major reasons that I struggle to let go of my hold on my more traditional beliefs/practices. I loved libraries as a child, throughout school and still now in my adult life - if they all go digital, I will be very sad - especially when thinking that my own children may grow up in a world where our trips to the library become online.
I would like to learn how the web and technology can benefit my job as in special education. Although I used to teach Language Arts, I don't currently teach any particular discipline, but support all areas.
