Kelly W. Hines

After reading "It's Not About the Technology , rereading it, and then reading it for a third time, there are several things that capture my interest in this post. First, I agree that there has to be a change in the way teachers think. We can't stand in front of a room full of desks and talk about things in a book that children believe have no relevancy to them and their lives. We have to understand what motivates them, and use that to help them learn. What motivates the children of today? Technology. Wii, I-pod, You Tube, computer animation, Facebook, Twitter. These all involve technology. Why not use their interests to our advantage. No, as teachers we can not assume that everything has to use technology, but if it's what interests the students, we should not ignore it.

Which brings me to my second point. I fully agree with Ms. Hines that teachers should never stop learning. The more we can learn about technology, the better equipped we will be to properly use it in our classrooms. Technology is constantly changing. It is our responsibility to stay abreast of developments and find new ways to reach this constantly changing youth.

And a final point that grabbed my attention was the statement: "Teachers who customize the learning experiences of their students to involve critical thinking and problem solving are doing their students a greater favor than those who misuse technology as a means of facilitating learning." I love her choice of the word 'misuse'. Teachers can use technology to teach critical thinking and problem solving, they just have to be sure that technology is not their only tool in their chest. How many carpenters do you know that use only one tool to build a house? How many tools should a teacher use? I say as many as possible, because using only one tool won't get the job done.