Ms. Dorothy,
How am I supposed to keep up with all the changing technology and expectations for integrating it in school? There is just so much, and every week it seems like there is something new I'm supposed to learn to do and share with my kids. I'm still not convinced they should be on the internet at all in elementary school. You aren't a kid, and yet you seem comfortable with all these changes. Can you help me think about it differently?
- A Teacher
It is so hard for great teachers to do things half-way. Your impulse is to be an expert at it before you bring it to your students, so that you can help and support them, and that perfectionism can get in the way of taking on something new.
The fact is that you can learn alongside your students. They may even be able to help you! You don't have to be a master, just willing to give it a try.
Don't worry, you won't break the internet if you do it wrong.
Consider this; your students are going to need these tools to be successful in the future, and delaying their exposure won't make them safer.
Teaching children to be aware of how public and permanent the internet is will make them more savvy users in the future. And the fact is, that all these technologies are going to change and develop in the years ahead, and your students will need to develop the habits of learning, changing and adapting to new things in order to continue to be successful.
Don't worry about keeping up with all of it, just jump in and begin exploring. If you wait till you master it, you'll never teach it, because "it" is a moving target!
How am I supposed to keep up with all the changing technology and expectations for integrating it in school? There is just so much, and every week it seems like there is something new I'm supposed to learn to do and share with my kids. I'm still not convinced they should be on the internet at all in elementary school. You aren't a kid, and yet you seem comfortable with all these changes. Can you help me think about it differently?
- A Teacher
It is so hard for great teachers to do things half-way. Your impulse is to be an expert at it before you bring it to your students, so that you can help and support them, and that perfectionism can get in the way of taking on something new.
The fact is that you can learn alongside your students. They may even be able to help you! You don't have to be a master, just willing to give it a try.
Don't worry, you won't break the internet if you do it wrong.
Consider this; your students are going to need these tools to be successful in the future, and delaying their exposure won't make them safer.
Teaching children to be aware of how public and permanent the internet is will make them more savvy users in the future. And the fact is, that all these technologies are going to change and develop in the years ahead, and your students will need to develop the habits of learning, changing and adapting to new things in order to continue to be successful.
Don't worry about keeping up with all of it, just jump in and begin exploring. If you wait till you master it, you'll never teach it, because "it" is a moving target!
I just wanted to share with you that I enjoyed this post. As a teacher that loves technology I can not stress enough the importance of keeping up. This generation is so tech savvy that if we do not keep up with what the students do, we will only be losing the connections that we have with them. I agree with the idea that you do not have to master the technology to teach with it and have found that some of my best lessons were ones where the students taught me. Thank you for your post and I look forward to seeing more.
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