Is it ok to be technologically illiterate teacher?

I think that it is still a little bit acceptable today for teachers to a bit behind in the technology department but it is not to far down the road that it will not be acceptable. Everyday technology is taking over more and more and I think that people need to accept it and not try to fight it. There is no getting around it that the world is going that way and that teachers need to be learning about it and learning to incorporate it into their lesson plans.
How can we as educators teach this to our students when we don't fully understand it ourselves. You have to know it to teach it. I do agree that in 20 years you will not be able to be successful if you our technologically illiterate. It is also true that teachers, especially educators that have been in the field a long time, have a lot on their plates and it can be a scary thing to learn after doing it a certain way for so long. That is why it is so important that we teach our students now so that they are experienced for the future.

International Schools 2

This is Stephen Downes from Moncton, New Brunswick. He has become a leading voice in education concerning weblogs in education, metadata, and related issues. He came up with a list of things he thinks that students should learn before they go into their careers and be successful in life, no matter how old you are. He teaches his students to learn how to write 5 sentence e-mails, power point slides, etc....

international schools that blog

This school is in Tirupati, India and is called Sri Padmavathi Womens University. The teacher, Mr. Bernie Poole, says that most of his students have never used a computer in their life. He says that learning to use the computer is like riding a bike and says that 5 out of 50 students, today, still are having a little bit of trouble. He insists that in todays world teaching students to use the computer is vital in the world today.

ACCESS school #1

Mrs. Dudiak's second grade classroom in Frederick County, MD uses blogs in their classroom. Mrs. Dudiak and her students went on a field trip to Native American Farm and when they returned, instead of discussing the trip, she allowed them to express their feelings on their class blog. She allowed them to post pictures and talk about their thoughts. She found that some students that were relatively shy, came alive when they were able to respond online. Mrs. Dudiak and her peers believe that using blogs is easier and a more fun way to keep up with assignments and other school news. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2004/08/19/technology/19blog.jpg

Melanie Sullivan and Betsy Blumberg at John Eliot School in Needham, have joined the population of bloggers over the past couple of years. Mrs. Sullivan and Mrs. Blumberg have found that they can keep parents more involved by posting comments or even class assignments and grades so they can keep up with what their children are doing. Blumberg mainly used her blog to alert parents of grades and any trouble their children were having. Mrs. Sullivan used her blog to express different ideas to other teachers and let them know what is and is not working for her.
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ACCESS

ACCESS seems to be a great new tool for educators to use in the classroom. ACCESS offers many opportunities to teachers as well as students. during high school there can be many different scenarios that can make it difficult for students to keep up their work which can make a difference in graduating or not. ACCESS offers these students an opportunity to catch up their work allowing them the chance to walk with their classmates.
ACCESS also is great in many different ways. For example, it offers advanced level courses that may otherwise be unavailable to students. Like I said earlier, it is great for those students who need to accelerate graduation or make up courses. It gives students confidence in technology skills and it allows the opportunity to interact with other students outside of their own school. It minimizes teacher shortage and alos improves grades. ACCESS offers interactive and web-based education to students and teaches students and instructors 21st century technology. Experiences with ACCESS has been mainly positive and 82% of teachers and staff reported that virtual school experiences were as good or better than other, traditional courses.