I have recently finished an article posted in the Fischbowl titled Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? In this article, Mr Fisch said that 1. All educators must achieve a basic level of technological capability.2. People who do not meet the criterion of #1 should be embarrassed, not proud, to say so in public.3. We should finally drop the myth of digital natives and digital immigrants. Back in July 2006 I said in my blog, in the context of issuing guidance to parents about e-safety:"I'm sorry, but I don't go for all this digital natives and immigrants stuff when it comes to this: I don't know anything about the internal combustion engine, but I know it's pretty dangerous to wander about on the road, so I've learnt to handle myself safely when I need to get from one side of the road to the other."The phrase may have been useful to start with, but it's been over-used for a long time now. In any case, after immigrants have been in a country for a while, they become natives. We've had personal computers for 30 years, and I was using computers in my teaching back in 1975. How long does it take for someone to wake up to the fact that technology is part of life, not an add-on?4. Headteachers and Principals who have staff who are technologically-illiterate should be held to account.5. School inspectors who are technologically illiterate should be encouraged to find alternative employment.6. Schools, Universities and Teacher training courses who turn out students who are technologically illiterate should have their right to a licence and/or funding questioned.7. We should stop being so nice. After all, we've got our qualifications and jobs, and we don't have the moral right to sit placidly on the sidelines whilst some educators are potentially jeopardising the chances of our youngsters.
I believe that teacher do have to be technologically literate because technology is becoming a major part of many peoples lives. Teachers who don't know how to work a computer will fall behind because so much is done on the computer. In my science class for example, my text book is on the internet which is very convenient. The internet is also becoming a major research area. Many interesting facts are online. Thousands of websites will pop up in seconds on one search. The problem with this is knowing which websites are good and which aren't. Teachers who aren't technologically literate will fall behind and his/her students will suffer. People all around the world are using technology more and more, and this drastic increase in technology use will just keep building itself, until in every classroom, children will be using their own personal laptops and education will be linked with the new technology that has yet to come.
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I strongly believe that all teachers should have a basic understanding of the computer and should be given professional development time to learn the ins and outs of web searching. The problem is with cut backs in state funding and shorter school years, schools are having trouble finding the money and time to train their teachers. Teachers must know how their students are researching. The internet is a powerful tool for research, but it can also be used to cheat. Schools will have to stay current on search engines and cheat sites to help prevent students from plagarism. This can only be done through training teachers.
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