Teaching & Tech
Here is an interesting article from The New York Times about how classroom teachers and technology. My synopsis: teachers are arguing to keep teaching rather than becoming “IT” professionals in the classroom. I had good teachers, exceptionally good, and coach Cain that meant well, but knew more about football defense than biology. As I read this article I remember the problems with the Texas School Board and their revisionists history, Christian nation ability to redact what professional academics have written in text books. The fight for the classroom is who get’s to decide what is academically accurate and taught. Is this home schooling brought to the tablet? Education has become another consumer product and political wedge issue.
Teachers Resist High-Tech Push in Idaho Schools
by Matt Ritchel | The New York TimesThis change is part of a broader shift that is creating tension — a tension that is especially visible in Idaho but is playing out across the country. Some teachers, even though they may embrace classroom technology, feel policy makers are thrusting computers into classrooms without their input or proper training. And some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproved.
“Teachers don’t object to the use of technology,” said Sabrina Laine, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which has studied the views of the nation’s teachers using grants from organizations like the Gates and Ford Foundations. “They object to being given a resource with strings attached, and without the needed support to use it effectively to improve student learning.”