Technologically Illiterate – Rants, Arguments and More in the Small World of Educational Bloggers

Interesting that the educational blog post of the year (yes can you believe such a thing exists) is related to the argument related to whether every teacher should today be technologically literate. Terry Freedman – Techlearning Blog, sets out a set of basic rules and limits of how technogically literate you are, anything beyond this should lead to educators finding employment in another profession. Harsh, well yes and the post by Karl Fisch over at Fischbowl (the one that one the award) does suggest this but in fact both end up on the side of agreeing with the following statement:-

“If a teacher today is not technologically literate – and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more – it’s equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn’t know how to read and write.”

But is it really the fault of the educator, who has to be able to move between a variety of applications, of an variety of platforms/ operating systems and has to stand in front of students who expect that you as the teacher should KNOW everything. Is the fault not on us as educators understanding and technological literacy OR that as educators we often still want to fulfill the central role rather than making sure that we and our students both understand our role is only as a facilitator who can help solve problems and points students in the right direction. As a teacher I always make this abundantly clear that I do not always know but CAN given time and also the rest of the classes help solve or find out? It is often a way that students feel is an ‘opt out’ clause, but students do eventually realise the benefits but also the responsibilities that come with this.

So maybe I can only agree with the ‘unwilling to make the effort to learn’ part of the above statement, and then on the understanding that the willing to know does not necessarily mean spending hours at training sessions and at home working to improve our technological literacy but more the willingness to understand that at a given time with students we can learn and problem solve in a collaborative group.