When I was in grade school, up until 4th grade, I was enrolled in a Waldorf School System. It's an entirely different teaching philosophy, one that I won't get into here. One thing among many that I remember is that my grade-school teacher (the same teacher followed the same class up until 12th grade graduation) hated technology. I can not stress that enough. Calculators were frowned upon. Weather reports on the radio or on television was scoffed at. And digital watches, like a Casio, were a huge sign of the end of the world.
This is an extreme example but I wouldn't be surprised if it still exists, even in some of our public schools. And that is sad.
My philosophy on technology in the classroom is that it must be balanced with traditional learning. When we watched this video in our first class last week, one thing that struck me is the little girl holding up a sampling of her cursive writing in one hand and the question "How will this help me?" in the other. Yes, it is hard to imagine that technology as we know it today will one day disappear or collapse, but there are numerous situations and benefits to learning the "old stuff".
I have encountered quite a few people that have no idea how to write out a check--everything they do is done online. Maybe I'm old school, but technology isn't here to necessarily replace everything that has happened in the past (yet), but to co-exist, compliment and create a balance between what is old and what is new.
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