Chapter 9: What does this all mean?

This chapter of Thinking Education in the Age of Technology shows educators that children are using technology whether we like it or not.  Students are jumping on the video game bandwagon which leaves many parents and educators frightened.  There is the notion that students who aren't reading actual text are not improving vocabulary or reading skills.  However if you take part of the online community of video games there is many opportunities to communicate with other gamers which in the end improves a students communication skill.  The book encourages parents to instead of judging what the child is doing, and predicting that the game has little educational value, you should go ahead and play the game with your child.  Many times parents are unsure of technology and often jump to the wrong conclusions. By having your child teaching you about different technologies, you not only learn different benefits of the technology but also improve your child's understanding of the technology.  Teaching others is one of the best ways to learn new things.  This concept can also be applied to blogs, wiki's, Facebook, Twitter and many other types of technologies.  

When I was telling my mom about the different things I was learning for this class you could see the glazed look come over her face.  However instead of continuing to talk about the different things I was doing, I sat down and showed her the different things we were learning. My mom was the first follower of my blog and has become my friend on face book and also has her own flicker account.  She now doesn't think sitting on the computer for hours at a time is a complete waste of time, but knows there is some benefits to the various amounts of technology.  Also by showing her the different things I learned in class, I was able to learn more in depth about the different items we touched on.  This was a win win for both parties.

It is a fact of our time that students are using technology at an alarming rate.  So why continue to teach students based on old methods that interested an older generation.  We should change our focus to reach today generation of learners not past learners.