While we might not have the massed produced flying car in 2009, of which I still am bummed about, we do have phones that can tell us where the cheapest gas is, where the nearest Starbucks is and Tweet until our thumbs fall off. Does all of this technology at our finger tips and constant connectivity make us better and more productive people or is constant connectivity just building our egos and pulling us in too many directions?
Case and point, I visited a Friendly's with my family after a visit to the Philadelphia Zoo over the summer. As my wife and I played table goalie, attempting to make sure our son didn't break anything or eat anything that he wasn't supposed to, we noticed a family sitting near by. A mother took her tween son and daughter our for a nice weekday lunch. Was this family engaged in conversation? Possibly, but not with one another. You see the son was on his PSP while the daughter was texting on her phone. I might dismiss this as just a display of poor table manners, but such a feat was repeated in the past month as my family ate dinner a our local Carrabba's. As we enjoyed our dinner a near by family seemed to enjoy the company of their iphones and PSPs more than each other. Are these displays of where we are heading as as society?
I often tell me students that we live in the second great era of technological advancement. The first era consisted of the first and second industrial revolutions. Industry was embraced during that era, often with little or no knowledge of the repercussion of such technological advancement. Yes industrialization has its many positives, but one cannot overlook its negatives as well. After all did anyone ever hear any early industrialist warn about the negative effects of industrialization on the environment or of the possible volatile swings in the capitalist market system?
Our current age of technological innovation is one that has never happened in recorded history. Never before has technology advanced at such a rapid pace. I am one of the first to say that technology has its many advantages and has made countless lives better in immeasurable ways. However, what are the negatives of the exponential growth of technology? Are we better people, better individuals, and a better world because of it? Or is technology overtaking simple every day tasks of our lives, such as sitting down to a meal with the people we care about the most? Where are we headed during this second great age of technological advancement? I suppose that only time will tell.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Coping With A Constantly Changing World
For my first blog post, I felt it would fitting to comment on something that has gotten be thinking about the way we educate our students in public schools. I am a public school teacher in NJ and had the unique opportunity in meeting Will Richardson on my first day back from summer break. Will Richardson is a leading figure on educational technology and a proponent of changing how schools view and use technology in and out of the classroom.
Will Richardson's keynote address opened my eyes about the issues that school districts face when attempting to regulate the use of technology while attempting to enrich the minds of 21st century thinkers. Case and point my districts cell phone policy, which allows students to have and use cell phones in the building until homeroom. Once homeroom begins the cell phones must magically disappear, not to be seen again until the closing bell.
In the past I would have been one to enforce this policy with every breath of my being. However as time has gone on, I found myself losing a war with a growing technology and something that is woven into the social fabric of today's society. I began to lax my enforcement of this policy and after Will Richardson's keynote address to my district I have accepted that there is no reason for me to continue to attempt to hold back to tide of students having cell phones during school hours. After all, how is it fair to expect students to disconnect from 21st century society when being constantly being connected to 21st century society is all that they know?
Will Richardson's keynote address opened my eyes about the issues that school districts face when attempting to regulate the use of technology while attempting to enrich the minds of 21st century thinkers. Case and point my districts cell phone policy, which allows students to have and use cell phones in the building until homeroom. Once homeroom begins the cell phones must magically disappear, not to be seen again until the closing bell.
In the past I would have been one to enforce this policy with every breath of my being. However as time has gone on, I found myself losing a war with a growing technology and something that is woven into the social fabric of today's society. I began to lax my enforcement of this policy and after Will Richardson's keynote address to my district I have accepted that there is no reason for me to continue to attempt to hold back to tide of students having cell phones during school hours. After all, how is it fair to expect students to disconnect from 21st century society when being constantly being connected to 21st century society is all that they know?
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