In the most influential edublog posting of 2007 (titiled: ‘Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?’ ), Fisch mentions: “I think there’s a general feeling among teachers (not all teachers, but many) that it’s okay to be technologically illiterate.” Hmm … my guess is that other professions possibly have a similar attitude & this situation is possibly just a symptom of the ‘digital revolution’ we’re living in right now. No doubt it will change over time. Fisch does acknowledge that teachers are primarily pedagogical experts and usually very busy creating learning opportunities for their students. Perhaps a more pertinent questions therefore is: To what extent can technology support students’ learning? What creative (unique?) opportunities are available for students to use technology to mediate the important social & reflective processes involved in authentic learning? Perhaps it is less a matter of being technologically literate and more an issue of ‘awareness’ of how technology might influence the learning process itself
Tags: literacy, teachers, technological7 Responses to “Reaction to Fisch”Leave a Reply |
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August 21st, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Matthew I think there are 2 issues:
1. We don’t want to use ‘technology for technolgies sake’ – we want to use it when it is a useful tool. It is early days so not everyone is sure when it should be used. But we need teachers to have the skills needed to integrate technology when appropriate.
2. At the same time, is it the role of school to teach the new digital literacy skills that students need to navigate and assess information successfully? If this is becoming one of the roles of schools then it is essential that teachers are as technologically literate as possible.
My experience is that smartboards are not used effectively in most schools, many teachers have no idea how to do simple things like connect a data projector to a computer and make it work much less some of the more challenging aspects. But as the new generation of teachers become a majority rather than a minority things will begin to change more rapidly – it is this transition period that is ost challenging.
Prue
October 10th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] on Edublogs in 2007. There are some controversial things in this post, and after reading Matthew K’s thoughtful take on it and Chris’ enjoyable rant, I feel compelled to comment [...]
October 14th, 2008 at 9:20 am
[...] reaction to Matthew Kearney’s posting on Fisch’s ”It Is Ok To Be An Technologically Illiterate teacher”, I have to say [...]
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I agree with Prue the the ‘transition period’ of this ‘digital revolution’ is particularly challenging.
I agree with Matthew’s idea that educators could focus first on the educational opportunities that new technologies offer.
So there should be nothing wrong with allowing groups of students the option of using digital media to produce and present project work. We might be surprised at how much some of the students can teach the rest of us by doing this and how much smoother the transition could be!
November 5th, 2008 at 11:54 am
[...] This is in response to Karl Fisch’s post ‘Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?’. It is also a response to Matthew Kearney who commented on Fisch’s post. You can read what Kearney had to say here. [...]
November 14th, 2008 at 8:44 am
[...] is a reaction to Mathew Kearney’s posting: Reaction to Fisch.The posting asks a common question in schools and other industries, “Is it okay to be [...]
November 17th, 2008 at 4:34 am
[...] it okay to be a technologically illiterate teacher? Matthew Kearney’s blog: Reaction to Fisch raises some interesting points in relation to technologically illiterate teachers being symptomatic [...]