The World at Your Fingertips (written in 1997)

Although this article was written in 1997, the ideas about schools and the integration of technology appears to be current. It is so empowering as a teacher to observe your students' learning in an atmosphere where they are engaged in a topic and also excited about learning. I agree with the quote, "all students can benefit...powerful tool for learning", but for this quote to become relevant in our own classrooms, we (the educators) must take the time to learn effective tools to integrate technology in a kid friendly manner so that our students gain an understanding and can then in turn become independent learners/explorers. The article mentions that "technology brings more interesting and diverse material compared to the textbook". I completely agree with this last statement. Although textbooks can at the right moment be an important tool for instruction, it should not be the only resource. For example, my district has not adopted a new social studies curriculum for the past ten years! A lot has changed in our world in the past ten years that almost seem silly when it comes to referring to the book. I spent a lot of time the past 2 years, researching different strands in the Arizona standards and creating lessons and finding Internet resources to expand on the textbook, so that the standards were more "realistic" for my students. This article also goes hand in hand with Blooms Taxonomy of higher level learning/thinking, because our goal as educators is to provide our students with endless opportunities to "evaluate, analyze, and research"...all of these areas can be assessed if modeled properly. If I had not taken several courses over the last 2 years of technology professional development, I would not have the skills or confidence as an effective educator to successfully enhance my students' learning with technology.