YAHOO!! I'm so excited to have another regular reminder to blog! I love being able to get my thoughts out... and I feel like I can better understand them myself, and by default then be more able to express them to others, when I write them down.
The next few months I'll be in an education class exploring the internet and its relationship with education. It's already brought me out of my bubble, ironically enough (I didn't think an online class could do that to me!), by having me connect on twitter. Not sure I'll be very good at tweeting, but that'll be fun to explore.
Anyways! The point of this first post is to respond to an article: The Positive Impact of eLearning
A very interesting article indeed! My only concern: will we eliminate the classroom altogether? I will attempt to explain myself. If students learn at home overnight using the information given to them via the internet, for example, then they just come to school to problem solve or do projects, they don't really need us as teachers. I suppose this would make for a different view on teaching, perhaps one I'm maybe even more excited about. I see a future where specialized folk gather for the good of our youth... or perhaps there's simply a listing of all those willing to help our youth to understand or further expand their understanding of the universe, especially of their passions. We'd simply be using teachers the way I think they're supposed to be used! See, now that I've reflected... I'm not so sure this is a concern after all...
I have often thought about your concern about the declining need for teachers and I agree with you that because students are so internet savvy today it seems as though someday they might be able to teach themselves the curriculum via online resources. However I do believe that teachers will always be a necessary resource no matter how advanced our society becomes. As teachers it is our job to prepare the younger generations for the world that lays in front of them. That world looks a lot different today than it did even twenty years ago. Today we are preparing student for jobs that haven't even been invented yet. This is why I believe that as society progresses the role of the teacher will also progress. The Corning Institute provides a very interesting look as to what the future may look like for teachers in a video that they put out called A Day in the Life of Glass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkHpNnXLB0. Even though students can learn what they need to know about the set curriculum online I think that schools are very important in teaching students social skills, life skills, study skills, etc that they cannot learn over a computer. Thus although I do believe that the internet and technology are going to become a very large tool in the daily lives of student I do not think it can necessarily replace the classroom or the role of the teacher. Thus we as teachers must learn to stay on top of the new technologies out there so that we can be as helpful to the next generation as we can.
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