Today we were asked to come up with a technology mantra. We also were asked to write about the essential question below.

MANTRA:

Technology is like a river...
It never stays the same. Technology is a constantly evolving entity. Like a river it moves and evolves over time, like a river it shapes the world around it. Some aspects of technology are easy to use and very shallow; others are complicated and very deep. Rivers support life systems, technology supports a lot of social systems every day.

MANTRA: Students learn to relate technology to different academic areas. Teachers incorporate technology into their curriculum.

Essential Question: Given we are immersed in technology, how do we "see" it in order to evaluate its utility and impacts.

I feel like educators are too leery of technology. Instead of using firewalls to shut tools like blogs and myspace down, teachers should be encouraging their students to use them as tools of communication. I think the way to really see the change technology is making in education you have to compare past methods of teaching with those that are used today. Technology has already revolutionized education. It is changing the way teachers present material to students, and it is changing the way that students present their work to their teachers. At this point I think all teachers should be evaluated on the effectiveness of their use of technology. There should be certain technological requirements for students before they are allowed to begin school. Among these requirements should be that students word process assignments and carry a data storage device such as a USB drive at all times. I think the way that we see technology is in comparing what we have to what we had in the past. This is a tedious process because it involves always looking backward instead of doing the appropriate thing for educators to do which would be to stay current and look forward.