Week 1 Reflection- Jessica Louzon

            After reading the articles by Reigelith & Joseph and Postman, it is clear that the authors of each article have very different opinions on technology. There are points in each that I can understand and agree with, but I also believe they are each a bit off on other things.

            In the Postman article, he wrote about questioning the purpose of education before implementing new technology. I agree that this is an important part of the process that does often get overlooked in the schools. I think that schools often just use the technology with the purpose of teaching kids to use technology rather than using it as a tool to solve a problem or improve the teaching of the curriculum. I also liked his point about the function of schools including learning how to be a member of a community. With the recent push toward online learning in K-12^th grade, I have been concerned that this would be missed.

            One thing I disagreed with in Postman’s article was his comment about the problem of getting information to people fast being solved long ago. He mentioned that the telegraph did this. I think he missed an important point that there are more than one solution to problems and some are better than others. Using his logic, we could also say that the problem of needing to get from one place to another more quickly was solved with the invention of the horse buggy. I think most of us would agree that the car may be a more practical solution and are glad that we didn’t consider that problem solved long ago.  Another problem that I had with this point was that getting information to people fast is not the only problem that we can solve using technology. I have special education some special education students who have a problem. They are unable to speak and communicate. Using an iPad to touch pictures to communicate solves their problem. I have had other students who have a problem with attending to group activities. Technology helped solve their problem by making the activity bigger and more interactive on the SMART board.

            In the Reigeluth & Joseph article, I was at first surprised at their comment that “To date, technology has had a minimal impact on K-12 education in the united states.” Then, when I looked back at the year 2002, I thought about the changes before and after that date and began to think he may have been on the right track. As a teacher, the technology in the classroom has changed dramatically since then. I also liked their discussion about the shift from a sorting paradigm to a learning paradigm. I feel that this has been especially important in the area of special education. Technology has done wonders for helping my special education students learn and communicate. If it weren’t for the increased focus on the learning paradigm, schools would not have continued to invest the time and money into technology for my special education students. They would have been sorted out and put to the side as less important. Technology has also allowed for differentiation. For example, having iPads in the classroom allows one student to work on an addition app while another works on identifying numerals. The attainment-based system is a much better fit than the time based system for my special education students.

            In conclusion, I think it is important to look at our purpose in education before implementing technology. I have seen both pros and cons to different uses and it is important to evaluate these things both before and after implementation.