Thursday, May 6, 2010

10 Things Every Teacher Should Know About Technology (Revisited)

On January 31, 2010, I submitted an assignment entitled 10 Things Every Teacher Should Know About Technology. The assignment was for Professor Barbara Fecteau's Emerging Technologies for Libraries course at Salem State College. (This blog is also a project for that same class.) I'd like to revisit the list now.

On January 31, this was my list of 10 Things Every Teacher Should Know About Technology:

  1. How to check, use and reply to email.

  2. How to create and format a Word document.

  3. Boolean search techniques.

  4. How to create and edit a class Wiki.

  5. How to find current information in the school's databases (if we are lucky to have them).

  6. How to properly cite all sources using MLA 7 – how to teach and evaluate students' citation skills.

  7. That technology takes patience and effort.

  8. How to quickly scan online text for key information and how to evaluate that information.

  9. That it's OK to learn as you go … and sometimes you may be the one learning from your students.

  10. How to teach students to safely search the Internet – and to trust that students can do just this.

I still think many of these items are important, but I think that teachers can be and should be pushed to a higher level of technology skills today. I don't think that any of today's teachers should be able to get away with saying, “I'm just not good with technology.” It is a disservice to our students if teachers are not pushing themselves to learn new technologies to improve technology.

With that said, I'd like to add a few items to the list, including:

  1. How to tag and save items in del.icio.us or digg. Teachers should know how to save their own bookmarks for easy access at a later date.

  2. How to search for, find and evaluate the best online resources for their curriculum needs.

  3. That in order to elevate our student's understanding of technology, teachers must elevate their own understanding of technology – even if that means putting in extra time to read blogs or attend professional development sessions on certain technologies. It's so important to take a chance on a new technology.