Educational+Technology+Vision

Vision for Educational Technology

My vision for educational technology is ultimately that we as educators will find ways to use technology in the classroom that will prepare students for their future careers and adult lives. It is inevitable that students will one day use technology on a daily basis in their work and personal lives. Technology connects students to others as well as giving them a voice beyond the classroom (Johnson 4). In an effort to help students reach success in situations, we can help students to do this by teaching them to use technology in all areas of their life. Closing the "digital divide" for all students regardless of socioeconomic status or level of education will help students to achieve career and personal success in their futures (Johnson 4). While it becomes increasingly more important for students to be proficient in the use of technology, there exists a growing lag in the training of teachers to be able to teach students these skills (Johnson 5). I see it to be of key importance that teachers receive the ongoing training that they need to be proficient themselves, that they are given the tools, training and opportunities to teach those skills to their students, and that they are given access to the technologies that they and their students need. There are many technologies in use that are still shunned in most educational settings. It is important for us to find ways to use these in teaching and acknowledge these tools, as our students will be using them (and many already are) in their daily lives. We have to use these existing technologies as well as teaching students about newly emerging technologies so that our students can enter the workforce prepared for what they need to be able to do. Incorporating collaborative environments into education will be a huge aspect of preparing students for their futures. Students will all be working in collaborative environments in one way or another in their future jobs. We have to mirror that in educational settings in order to prepare students for what they will be facing when they enter the workplace. The struggle will be to move away from traditional teaching practices and incorporating more student-centered models, rather than simply attempting to plug technology into the practices that we currently have (Williamson 38). My vision is a slow but steady shift toward new models of inquiry, collaboration and constructivist models of teaching and learning with the assistance of technology tools.

Works Cited Johnson, L., Smith, R., Levine, A., and Haywood, K., (2010). // 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. //   Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Williamson, J. & Redish, T. (2009). //ISTE’s technology facilitation and leadership standards: What every K-12 leader should know and be able to do//.

Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, pp. 57-99.