This week I learned...that technological literacy doesn't just mean that you can open your email and turn on a computer. Laugh if you will, but not too long ago, that's all it took to claim to be technologically literate. Now my 5-year old can do more than that. I remember well the first "search engine" that I used at the local library. I thought it was a miracle. About 14 years ago, the library had just gotten this new machine in-you typed in the name of the person, place, or thing that you wanted to research, and get this-in a matter of MINUTES a list of all the magazines and books that referenced the entered name would magically appear on a long sheet of rolling dot-matrix paper. Wow! Like magic...then you had to cross your fingers and pray that the library still had some of the magazines that were on the list and that they were lost...or stolen...or checked out...or in a magazine that they didn't subscribe to... That was innovation at work.
I've been there through the birth of the Internet and witnessed the changes first hand that made my undergraduate "Educational Technology" course outdated by the time I graduated with my teaching degree less than four years later.
After reviewing specifics of the National Education Technology Standards, I realized how many of the standards that I already implement in my classroom and identified several of the ones that I am a little "light" on. In particular, the standard that addresses leadership in the area of professional growth in technology. I hope to overcome the challenges that this standard presents by learning some valuable skills in that area during this class.
To end my very first Blog entry EVER, I include one of my favorite quotes from the assigned readings this lesson. It was from the YouTube video: A Vision of Today's Students. I am paraphrasing, but I have heard the quote previously in association with 21st Century Learning Communities, so it's not original to the site anyway:
"When I graduate, I will probably have a job that does not exist yet."
I love this quote, because it's so true. That's what real technology is. We create what we need to meet our needs and wants, by using what we already know to help us learn more. As a science teacher, I always want to know more and look forward to keeping up with the changes in technology that make my job easier and even more exciting.
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