Reflection on Chapter 2 of Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology

        

       One of the reasons that the technology enthusiasts give as to why technology should be more widespread in schools is that the world is changing and students need to be prepared for the world they are entering. When entering the work force, students will need to know how to use all of the new technology that has been developed in recent years.  Yet teachers are still using the 19th century technology of books, whiteboards, paper and pencils when students will most likely not be using these things after their schooling is complete.  I really liked this quote that the authors used "Trying to prepare students for the 21st century with 19th century technology is like teaching people to fly a rocket ship by having them ride bicycles."  I completely agree with this statement, and think that the types of things that students are being taught to do are not useful to them because what they will have to do in the workplace  and what they have to do in school are so completely out of sync.
       Another reason that technology enthusiasts use as to why technology should be more widespread in schools is that technology gives us enhance capabilities for educating students, so schools should embrace these capabilities to reshape education. There are so many different ways to use technology to enhance lesson plans and to allow students to interact with their own learning and interests more.  Students can create things on the computer that can be shared with other schools across the world, so that they feel like the work they are doing is important and not just for the teacher.  Students will be more interested in what the teacher is teaching if their is some type of technology involved.  Technology provides so many opportunities to enhance student learning, interaction and engagement so why wouldn't a teacher want to start to include it more in their teaching?
       I completely agree with the technology enthusiast's point of view. I wholeheartedly believe that technology can have a huge impact on education and really reform it for the better.  I think that technology will better help teachers meet the needs of all students though differentiation and that it can really make a difference in a student's education. I don't understand why schools are still using 19th century technology when the 21st century technology is completely reforming what students need to know how to do when they enter the workforce. It just doesn't make sense to prepare students for the workforce with technology that is no longer used in the work place. Teachers are scared of the change in education that these new technologies could bring, the world is changing so fast that it is hard to predict where education is going in the near future.
      Growing up, technology was not as widespread as it is now.  We had one computer in our classroom, but all I can really remember doing on it was playing games.  I learned how to keyboard in high school, and gradually how to use the internet for researching etc, but that was about the extent of my use of technology.  As an educator, I have tried to integrate technology into my lesson plans as much as possible.  I do not see it used on a daily basis in the school that I work at now, we rarely ever go to the computer lab, and students use the computers in the classroom to either type a paper or play games. I think this is largely due to the fact that a lot of the teachers do not know how to use the technology themselves, so how can they teach their students to do it?