Social Justice

The technology gap also affects our classrooms and we as teachers have a responsibility to work towards closing the gap between the poor and rich in the area of technology. As it mentions in the article if we do not use technology in the classroom we are doing a disservice to our students. But as we discussed in class, what about those students who don't have access to technology in their homes?

I would argue we can still teach them as much as possible about technology in our classrooms. There's a lot that can be done in the class with technology. I would argue we would be doing our students the greater disservice if we did not use technology as much as we can.

Cell Phones in Class?

I lean towards not allowing cell phones in the classroom because I think they are just too distracting. However, I can see using them in specific situations as long as the guidelines were very specific and clear.

I personally think the first fellow didn't make a very strong argument against cellphones because he was going off on his own personal soap boxes. I think the girl for cell phones was much more reasonable and therefore I wanted to side with her because her arguments were more reasonable.

Power Point

I've really enjoyed going through the readings and info on power point. I have found the emphasis on story-telling and simplicity to be enlightening and something that I want to implement more thoroughly.

I have actually found it a freeing concept because focusing on good images and one idea a slide is so much easier than trying to cram in the right amount of info.

I also thought there were some helpful design ideas such as making a box around the text and contrasting white and black.

Is Chat Speak Destroying English?

As usual, I think that both sides have valid points to make. Howard argues that chatspeak is destroying English because young people are beginning to write like that so often that it is becoming more natural to them than standard English. As Howard wrote in her piece, "I am concerned whether students are learning
the skills to fully express themselves through writing
as they move toward adulthood."

However, Monfils argues that kids can chatspeak and easily switch between standard English and chatspeak. I can understand Howard's concern especially in the case of those students that struggle academically. Students that don't have a lot of academic support or skills may have a hard time discerning what is standard and what is not.

Shortening Attention Spans?

I actually agree with both sides to some degree. I do believe it is true that technology can shorten our youth's attention span. However, I also think that we can help balance this tendency by training our kids to take the beneficial aspects of technology and try to minimize the negative aspects of it. I think being in denial of technology's negative by-products is not helpful.

I think Marcovitz shows a balanced, sober perspective when he writes, "Does that mean that educational technology is all bad? Of course not. There are great things that can be learned with technology. But Postman teaches us that every technology is a Faustian Bargain; for every positive benefit, there is an often unseen and very serious downside." Being aware of the downside of technology is an important key to avoiding its pit-falls and making the best of its strengths.