Week 2, Reflective Blog

To paraphrase that old expression, "The more I learn about educational technology, the more I learn how much I have to learn."

I guess I always looked at technology education as a two part process; first, students must be taught how to use the specific technology, and then taught how to utilize/apply it for any given educational objective. After viewing the two videos regarding "Digital Natives," I see that learners are well-prepared to utilize technology for education. The burden falls squarely on educators to "power-up" our instruction to fit 21st Century learning styles. If you look at it that way, it's not the students that need to get going, it's the educators.

For my library specifically, I would dearly love to use more technology. Monday through Thursday, I have one group each of third, fourth, and fifth grade students that visit the library for enrichment time. After taking a literature class last summer, I went back to school excited and full of ideas of how I could use Animoto to interest students in all the books I'd read over the summer, and wordle as a great way for students to create summaries of books they had read. I was shut down completely by our technology department. I was told that neither of these programs would be accessible on the student computers in our library, and that I could use the program only on my teacher computer. I have concluded that our District's technology plan is not one of how we can provide learners with a rich educational experience, but more a way to manage hardware.