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Op-Ed: The Future of Technology in Teaching and LearningMichelle KearneyWilliam Carey UniversityEDU 625 Dr. Shanna LukeOp-Ed: The Future of Technology in Teaching and LearningThe education we provide our students is no longer confined to the four walls of our classroom. Technology has provided a gateway to learning in ways that were unimaginable twenty years ago. To better prepare students for our technology-driven society, we must prepare them to become lifelong learners, provide opportunities where students will have a true drive to learn and encourage them to be imaginative thinkers/doers to reach their full potential. Of course, all of this starts with the teacher. If we do not become lifelong learners and lack the drive and imagination ourselves, how can we pass it on to our students? In essence, modeling these three components to our students will help prepare them for the competitive workforce. Lifelong Learners. An important responsibility of being a teacher is becoming a lifelong learner. In fact, technology has required more training for teachers than ever before! Even with all this training and all the resources available to us, some of us still lack the skills necessary to grasp how effective we can really be. Yes, technology provides us with an astonishing amount of opportunities and resources, but the task of locating the right ones can be daunting and tedious. The good news is becoming a lifelong learner is a character trait that all teachers should possess; which means, we can collaborate with each other to share ideas and resources. This same process of collaboration should be instilled in our students. Showing students the importance of developing skill-sets and becoming resourceful learners will be crucial for them to stay up-to-date with constant changes in technology. Providing them with opportunities in which they must derive the tools, resources and collaboration necessary to complete the task will help them become the independent thinkers they need to be. Better yet, showing them that collaboration can save time and resources will resonate as they continue their own journeys of becoming lifelong learners. In order for us to teach resourcefulness, we must model resourcefulness. Drive. We have seen through the videos of Sugata Mitra and High Tech High that students can learn when they really want to learn (Mitra, 2012; Rosenstock, 2009). Part of instilling this drive stems from the tools that have been made available and more accessible by technology. We need to be willing to give students outlets that will provoke a drive to learn more. This alone demonstrates our own drive as teachers to ensure students truly grasp the value of education. When students are given platforms that are user-friendly and “trick” the students into thinking they are just having fun, students are inclined to ingest more from the lesson than originally intended. Take for instance the game, Minecraft Education Edition. Students get the opportunity to “play” with something they are familiar with because they have probably played Minecraft at home and truly enjoyed it. What they are really doing is building computational thinking skills, exploring foundational concepts, learning problem-solving skills, coding skills, and incorporating a large amount of imagination into this one student-approved game. More than likely, they are also collaborating with their classmates, which is encouraging them to think about different options or strategies they may not have considered before. They get to add these tools to their growing toolbox and utilize these skills in other situations. Students are very resourceful when they want to be, and even though they may not always want to do the work we assign them, at least they will have the tools they need to complete the task and transfer knowledge (Microsoft, 2019). Imaginative Thinkers/Doers. Technology provides us with endless opportunities for learning and growth. We can now take a lesson and enhance it with video tutorials, virtual field trips, 3D printing, virtual development, the list goes on and on. With technology, teachers can (1) encourage students to stretch their limits and really strive to create something original and innovative and (2) use what they have learned to demonstrate mastery in creative and unique ways. Students can no longer use the excuse, “I’m just not creative,” because technology has a cure for those who can think it, but don’t know how to create it. Marketability is going to be a key player as they enter the workforce because technology is giving students the tools they need; it is all about how they use them. With regard to creativity and extension of learning, technology also provides a more cost effective way of bringing ideas to life. Students can virtually build a robot without spending money on supplies; they can also make mistakes without worrying about the cost, encouraging more “tinkering” of ideas and brainstorming sessions they can “bring to life.” Furthermore, when teachers incorporate their own hobbies and passions into the lesson, as we have seen in the High Tech High video, students get to see real connections being made with true passion. It will ignite opportunities for the student to be creative and brainstorm ideas that the teacher may not have even considered. Allowing students to be imaginative means we must also allow them a safety net to make mistakes, as long as part of the learning process entails learning from those mistakes. Teachers, too, must be willing to make mistakes and turn those mistakes into teachable moments. This will be incredibly valuable as students embark on their own paths and encounter their own obstacles (Rosenstock, 2009). Technology is intertwined in everything we do. Teachers need to demonstrate to students just how important it will be to commit to becoming a lifelong learner, develop a drive to learn, and put your best foot forward with every opportunity you receive to make yourself more marketable. We cannot merely preach these components to our students, we must model it for them if we want them to truly succeed. If we fail to comply, we are shortchanging our students’ potential for success. ReferencesMicrosoft (2019). Building blocks of code 1. Retrieved from , S. (2012). New experiments in self-teaching. Retrieved from , L. (2009). Project based learning at High Tech High. Retrieved from ................
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