When I first thought about educational technology, I naturally came up with things like chromebooks, Smartboards, and computer labs. My second level of thinking then went to Google Classroom, which I have used in my teaching practise for several years and other related technologies. I also think of things like alternate seating, fidgets, and noise cancelling headsets as technology that help the learning process.This is where I sort of stopped, until I read the readings for this week. It never dawned on me that the chalk board was innovative for the time and made learning easier for students to learn, or for that matter, how written language was a major leap in education.

In today’s society, I believe most people think of educational technology as computers, cell phones,( which are now a hot topic), and online speakers that come into the classroom as a few examples. This is becoming more contraversial as the trend in education, it seems, is to be going back to basics. All you hear about is ” Why are we not teaching the 3 R’s instead of all of this other stuff?” This is the divide in education. Even if we know that technology can help students, as we read this week, there is a tradeoff. Where we gain in one area, students will loose in another.

As a person who joined education a little later in life than most, I have had to change my thoughts on technology a little more drastically than most. I went to school in the 1970’s and 80’s, so I can recall the first computers that came into school. For me, it was the Commodore 64, moving a white dot across the t.v. screen. Everyone was in awe. Then we shifted to high school and the Apple 2C and the programming we had to design to get a two dimesional rocket to go across their own monitor. The internet was introduced just as I graduated, and th it exponential growth to where we are now. I had to grow with it and quickly if I was going to become an educator just a few short years ago. Now with AI and all that this could bring us, we are set for more massive growth. Maybe soon, teachers themselves will become outdated, just like the Commodore 64?