The Modern World

Apparently, this doesn't apply to me since I haven't updated the blog since August, but I am getting better.  I have spent time in the last year thinking about how different the world is today than ... five years ago.

It is estimated that half of the US households will own at least one smartphone sometime this year (if we are not already there).  It is not uncommon to meet people who no longer (or never did) own a land-line based phone.  My use of our own home phone is becoming more limited each day.  Just a year or so ago, I protected my cell phone number like it was a national security secret, but I have given it out more and more frequently recently to businesses and others.  Ninety percent of my phone calls to and from friends and family these days is made through my cell phone - enough so to make me question if a home phone is at all worth the monthly charge any more. 

It still aggravates me to see a family of four at a restaurant with every member - kids and parents included - texting, gaming, or surfing the web on their cell phone while waiting on their meal (and maybe even after the meal arrives).  The number of text messages my son sends out is easily 100 times the minutes he uses on his cell phone month after month.  It is obvious (or so it appears) that people today (not just "kids" as some of us would like to think) prefer to communicate via text message versus face-to-face. 

In a recent survey of 1000+ thirteen to seventeen year olds, for Common Sense Media, reported some surprising (at least to me) results.  I say surprising because some of the findings are reported that the students surveyed would prefer face-to-face communicate or feel that it takes away from their personal relationships.  While the percentage reported is significant, 49% is not a majority.  I take comfort in knowing that a sizable group of our future recognize there are some drawbacks to communication via a non-personal albeit convenient method even as I slip more and more in to the trap of this convenience. 

The current trend is poised to usher in some significant changes in how we approach teaching.  More and more, we are adapting new technology in the classroom setting.  While technology can offer up the same conveniences in the classroom that they offer at home - and any where else we go, as educators we need to make sure that we include teaching how to use technology responsibly and productively.

For the past 4 years of teaching, I have been committed to introducing more and more technology in my classroom, and I have done fairly well.  It started with using the Smart Board instead of a blackboard (literally, it was a blackboard) and ended with an almost exclusive use of an online classroom site to communicate with students last year.  This year, my commitment is to use MOODLE for more interactive communication with my students and seek to find a use for Twitter.  I am grateful that I teach in a school with a pretty good concentration of tech savvy faculty.  I am hopeful that we can bring more of our colleagues along.