Reflection on Chapter 12

Educational technology literacy is the ability not only to use technology, but also to apply the technology toward enriching instruction and student learning. Educators must grasp that by using technology to enhance instruction, student achievement will accelerate. The students already know the technology; it is the teacher that lags behind in this area. When the teacher takes the position of indifference toward learning technology skills, the student suffers the consequence. The same is true for administrators. Believe me, the spirit of indifference toward technology by our administrators is alive and well in our schools today. All too often when communicating with district administrators or principals, the conversation on their end begins with, “Well, I’m not computer literate…,” and they begin their spill. And I think to myself, “You’re not computer literate enough to run a report that directly relates to your job, but I know you know how to shop online because I’ve seen you do it.” To me, it is a choice. It is a choice of whether or not someone “wants” to stay up with the times to stay on top of their jobs, or whether they choose to be lazy since they are “not technology literate”. You see, shopping online is an acquired technology skill. They learned how to perform that skill because they wanted to. The skill of running a report out of a user-friendly software package can be easily acquired if the “want to” exists. Oftentimes, because the “want to” does not exist, we try to enforce acquired skills upon educators and administrators. We do this by requiring they complete some type of training or professional development. Sometimes, educators realize the potential in technology literacy, and for others, they just claim credit for attending the workshop. Sure our state and our school districts have intentions of meeting the No Child Left Behind mandates that students are technology literate by the end of 8th Grade, and educators are technology literate by 2008. But the true plan of action is non-existent. Each district is left to determine their way of accomplishing this. It is no easy feat, but with the technologies out there at our fingertips, it really should be doable. Our state Superintendent of Education is very supportive of technology. In fact, he utilizes it to address the public on a weekly basis through his Monday Memo, which can be accessed at http://www.mde.k12.ms.us/MondayMemo. Dr. Bounds has stated that he wants every high school student to have the experience of taking an online course. I think another beneficial action would be for teachers to be required to do the same, but not just on a one time basis. As the chapter pointed out, each state has their own licensure requirements. I think that if teachers were required to take an online professional development course at least every 2 years, they would become technologically literate and begin to utilize technology to enhance instruction which would ultimately mean higher student achievement.