Embracing Technology

This video is a message about the changing needs of college students. According to the video, students are highly involved in pursuits which incorporate technology. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, their increasing involvement with technology means that they must attempt to multi-task, and also decrease their involvement with other things. (Research indicates that it is impossible to multi-task. The human brain can attend to one item at a time. But people still try to do it!) Overall, students are spending more time with immediate, short and transient media, (facebook, email, etc.) and less time with traditional, expensive, time consuming, permanent media (textbooks, writing essays, etc.) The problem is that the instructional techniques of the university are stuck in the past. Personally, I wish I had kept track of how many hundreds of dollars I have wasted on textbooks which are of no use to me. There is very little information that is available in a textbook but not available on the web (for FREE!) The problem is that most professors teach the same way they learned. The video is telling us that in order to be prepared to work and live in the world of tomorrow, college students need an education that is relevant to the world of today.



This video contains a similar message about K-12 education. Here, students are depicted languishing in outdated classrooms, where teachers fail to capitalize on the engaging activities surrounding them. Technology such as blogging gives learners an opportunity to create something and share their thoughts, ideas and experiences with the world. In the United States, it is no longer enough to sit still and passively receive information. We are expected to network, interact, create and communicate. Students need to be engaged in activities which support the demands they will face. The support I am talking (blogging, digital storytelling, etc.) about is easily available at very little cost, but it is simply not being implemented because people fear change and teachers are people.

The common message of these two videos is that education institutions need to catch up with modern culture. Certainly, all sociological institutions are slow to change, and this is a good thing- it provides stability. But, because education is not embracing the interactive trends of our technological age, students are bored and time is wasted.