Personal Phillosophy of Technology in Education
Today’s students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a “singularity” – an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so-called “singularity” is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century (MCB University Press, 2001).
As human beings transcend the ages and the times, each era has become more advanced than the previous. These advances, irrespective of the cost or if anyone or anything might have suffered to gain these results, were all part of a plan to make the lives of humans better. Hence, the tools, devices and mediums used in the process of making the lives of human beings easier, are defined as and classified under the umbrella of technology. Technology is defined as all tools, machines, utensils, weapons, instruments, housing, clothing, communicating and transporting devices and the skills by which they are produced and used (American Sociological Review, 1937).
Therefore, the field of education is no different, and even in it technology can be used to advance the learning and teaching experience. It is therefore that we get up to speed and take hold of technology to enrich our teaching and learning process. Therefore, I dedicate myself to the task of integrating technology in my lessons, not as a foreign object, but as a tool to enrich the learning and teaching process. I charge myself, with the duty of enabling my students to see technology not as a sword which kills or fire that destroys, but rather as a sword that enables one to protect himself or herself with a solid educational foundation and rich repertoire of knowledge, which cut through that which the hands cannot; and as a fire which illuminates the night and brings warmth in the cold by the exposure of technology in the learning and teach process. Lastly, I will offer myself an open mind to readily welcome each individual's multiple intelligence and learning style, incorporate measures to facilitate this within my lessons; and foster minds which use technology as an extension of themselves to create and advance their learning, rather than as receptors to solely receive information as is. Hence, in my class, technology is that tool, the machine and weapon that enhances communication and the transportation of data, creating a virtual world full of possibilities, and making virtual realities tangible experiences.
As human beings transcend the ages and the times, each era has become more advanced than the previous. These advances, irrespective of the cost or if anyone or anything might have suffered to gain these results, were all part of a plan to make the lives of humans better. Hence, the tools, devices and mediums used in the process of making the lives of human beings easier, are defined as and classified under the umbrella of technology. Technology is defined as all tools, machines, utensils, weapons, instruments, housing, clothing, communicating and transporting devices and the skills by which they are produced and used (American Sociological Review, 1937).
Therefore, the field of education is no different, and even in it technology can be used to advance the learning and teaching experience. It is therefore that we get up to speed and take hold of technology to enrich our teaching and learning process. Therefore, I dedicate myself to the task of integrating technology in my lessons, not as a foreign object, but as a tool to enrich the learning and teaching process. I charge myself, with the duty of enabling my students to see technology not as a sword which kills or fire that destroys, but rather as a sword that enables one to protect himself or herself with a solid educational foundation and rich repertoire of knowledge, which cut through that which the hands cannot; and as a fire which illuminates the night and brings warmth in the cold by the exposure of technology in the learning and teach process. Lastly, I will offer myself an open mind to readily welcome each individual's multiple intelligence and learning style, incorporate measures to facilitate this within my lessons; and foster minds which use technology as an extension of themselves to create and advance their learning, rather than as receptors to solely receive information as is. Hence, in my class, technology is that tool, the machine and weapon that enhances communication and the transportation of data, creating a virtual world full of possibilities, and making virtual realities tangible experiences.