This quote, along with “New technology is common, new thinking is rare.” – Sir Peter Blake, are two statements that are resoundingly true. We as educators are consistently looking to improve the quality of education that our students receive, whether through improvements in our pedagogy, access to better resources, or simply creating a learning environment with many diverse options to approaching learning. I feel as if there is a disconnect between how quickly society advances in the integration of technology in our daily lives and the curriculum being delivered in schools. Do specifics matter anymore? If a student knows how to find information, does memorizing specific facts still hold value? Are subjects such as history changing because the facts are less important compared to the ability to find that information on your own? I’m continually frustrated with how no technology curriculum exists for intermediate and younger students in the public board, and the vital content that shou...
A question that I keep coming back to is how the varied integration of technology in schools may be adversely impacting students’ ability to focus on boring stuff. It is quite challenging to actually be bored for any extended periods of time now, as soon as there is nothing going on the smartphones come out to play and fingers start texting, playing games or scrolling through social media. Is this causing an adverse impact on creativity in kids? Technology has taken over making stuff up to keep ourselves occupied, imagination may be being stifled. In a classroom environment we’re always looking at trying new and novel things, but I feel like a lot of it may be “lets try that, lets try this” instead of sitting down with a particular perhaps not-so exciting tool and mastering it to a high level. Sharing our information: I’m interested to see what @AndrewMendosa, @SamHarris and @StevenPinker would think about this issue, being the most active and followed psychologists currently on Twi...