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Currently, I teach middle school language arts as a fourth year teacher. Being a lifelong learner and properly equipping my students are established goals that I intend to work towards daily.
Technology advancements are taking way each day. How do we, as educators, prepare our students for the technological world beyond the classroom?
Nowadays it's not very difficult to prepare students for the technological world. STudents of this gen are more adoptable to technology. There are many ways which you can use in the primary stage like giving them assignments that would require use of technology, providing support after classroom tuition through webcam, sharing study materials online and many more.
I currently do give assignments that require the use of technology, but where I teach, not all students have technology available to them after school hours. I have to schedule time in the computer lab just to provide all students with access to a computer. It is overwhelming when students are expected to be technology minded, but we don't have the materials needed to get them there.
We need to get children acquainted with the available know how in more better way rather than simply teaching them text books and mundane concepts. Learning should now be revamped to make it more interactive and as per the needs of the society. Make kids do a lot of experimental and interactive work to help them learn about the technological phenomenas well.
I am teaching ICT related subjects for 10 years now and I see big change among students who used to this technology. As teacher, it is our duty to help them the proper way of using it. Technological world beyond the classroom is out of our control. Technology dependency decrease student's learning ability to create his/her own idea out of the topic. There is information available at the tip of their fingers. Creativity in using technology to enhance the output of student's learning be misguided.
The simple use of basic computer applications were always taken for granted because of overwhelming interactive games installed in the computer workstations outside the campus premises. We need to help them learn the basic first before bringing them in the horizon of educational technology using other peripheral devices needed, to enhance computer features and usage.
I think it is very important to start teaching students, especially at a young age, about topics like cybersecurity, cybersafety, and cyberethics. With the world focusing so much on technology it is important that we teach students how to stay safe and secure and how to properly interact with others online and through any type of technology.
I think students should learn how to evaluate media literacy critically and ethically so they understand proper ethic behaviors they need to have when navigating online. They should also learn the importance of proper citations to prevent plagiarism either voluntary or involuntary. Cybersecurity and cybersafety are also important due to their own personal information might be at risk if they don’t know about the risks especially when they join social networks. We, teachers, have to help our students on their technology training and there is no need to be a technology-savvy to share information with our students about ethic and safety.
With every minute, the technology is changing. We, as adults, are responsible for your youth. Children are not smart enough to learn the effective information; they are smart to learn everything. But everything cannot be secure. Now-a-days, children knows how to operate the computer, cell phone, I-pad, etc better then old generation, but are not well educated towards their safety and security.. The computer technology, especially internet has changed our methods of learning. The internet is the biggest discovery that leads to revolution. The two most important use of internet are: communication and information. Students can do projects by using internet. Internet is also like an encyclopedia: Students can find any information about anything or any subject. With changing world, internet is adopted as a vehicle for conveying information to students. So, it became necessary to shed off the ignorance and embrace the information literacy skills that promote learning to students.
I am forced to consider the difference between Presentation vs Content. The trouble with much technology in terms of a delivery mechanism is that, while it may look good, it lacks substance. We need to be very careful about why and how we are using any new technology and clearly be aware of the value to success criteria and assessment. The other factor is that we need to very careful about investment dollars. Are we wasting money on the flavor of the month only to find out that it is obsolete a few months down the road.
I was in a training program for recent MBA graduates recently, in which the instructors said the material the recent grad's MBA information would be obsolete in less than three years.
I not only teach but freelance in many other sectors (which is why I take courses in subjects that appear to be a far cry from my teaching field.) My short answer to your question is that we need to keep focus on skills that don't go out of date (reading, writing, learning, computation, etc) and teach students how to learn to use new technologies on their own that allow them to employ those skills.