CDK’s Education Technology Place: The Reign of Technology

On Cydni Danner-Kuhn’s website I watched the two “Did you know?” videos. Some of the information on the videos was slightly jarring. For example, India has more honors students than America has students. Some of it was just interesting, like the first commercial text was sent in 1992. There were a lot of information I could guess, like the number of texts sent in a month by teenagers. Really, what this clip did was open my eyes to just how connected and advanced the world is. I, occasionally, am a fan of turning off my cell phone and going outside to read. Don’t get me wrong, I love technology. But I try to not fully immerse myself in every type of communication. I have a Facebook, and I get emails to my cell phone. But I don’t typically status update from my phone or use a lot of other social media. And I think I don’t always realize all the technology that is at my disposal. I often think that’s a good think, but sometimes I wonder what I am missing.

Reflection 1: Technology Bits, Bytes & NIbbles: The Great Technology Debate

I read two articles from the blog. One dealt with eBooks, the other with technology purging. And comparing the two is very interesting. The one about eBooks wondered if Kindles and iPads would extend or bridge the education gap. It is a very interesting point. I couldn’t read the entire article, but I believe that this will go one of two ways. If low-income students receive access to this technology, it could infinitely help them. eBooks are cheaper than normal books, meaning students can afford to buy more books. The books are stored digitally, giving families that don’t have room for a library, digital space to keep them. However, if it is left up to the students to acquire this technology, it will only benefit the wealthy students who can afford books in the first place. I readily believe that, if technology is given equally to all students and used well, the benefits can be beyond imagination. Opposing that, the other article shows a case where students benefited from going back to “1983 technology.” It says students unplugged from cell phones, the internet and video games. Most of the students reported liking and benefiting from the technology purge. They said it helped them focus on school and other pass times they had given up. The article then questioned if moving to a Web 2.0 school would really help students. Based on the study, that is a seemingly valid question. But in all reality, what these students gave up wouldn’t be the types of technology that would be useful in a classroom, and few supports of a tech-savy classroom would oppose students playing less video games. Though the technology of future classrooms is found on the internet, its purpose is different from being strictly social media. It is about being connected to share knowledge and ideas, not what movie you saw or who your latest crush is, like social media.

(http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/01/03/can-ebooks-help-bridge-achievement-gaps/)
http://www.good.is/post/should-schools-go-back-to-1983-technology/