This week we watched a documentary on new learning projects and programs that center around digital media. From an entire school that uses “gaming” as a base for its curriculum to an after school program for students to a motivated teacher who uses a GPS system to get his students out and learning about their town, people are embracing the use of digital media in the classroom. After all, it doesn’t make sense to continue to teach as if technology and the internet didn’t exist because they do exist. And students are going to have to navigate it in their every day lives. The classroom needs to adapt.

In my education, I can’t think of amazing ways in which teachers used technology in their lesson plans. I remember having projectors in my middle school math class where the teachers put clear pages over lights on the projector table. They they could write with erasable markers on these sheets and that would be projected onto the board behind them. I was the first person to have a laptop at age 12 (I was getting bad grades on essays because of my illegible handwriting…)… I even remember when my middle school got SmartBoards and none of the teachers knew how to use it! There are many ways in which technology was and has been a part of my education, but nothing to the extent that I saw in this documentary.

After reflecting a bit on my education and on the movie that we watched, I have a few different reactions. First, I’m relieved. I can’t help but be thankful that I didn’t have to design games, edit tons of movies and do all of my projects on a computer because, well, I don’t love spending time on a computer. Maybe I would like it more if I had had this type of digital education, but then I would be a different person. And that leads me to my second reaction – how is this education affecting these kids? Will they grow up to appreciate the outdoors? Certainly education helps shape who we are, and centering education (at least more-so than before) on technology changes kids. The movie seemed to be completely pro-technology without a second look; as if technology = good and education = good so technology = education. There is more room for speculation here. How does education incorporate learning about our physical environments, the species around us, and how we are affecting our planet? There is nothing like going outside, learning about ecology and connecting hands-on with that learning. I am not rejecting the value of technology, because I think it is an extremely useful tool that needs to be a part of the classroom, but I think that education is more than technology. Lastly, and I think it is necessary to include this reaction, I was very impressed with the ways that these educators were using technology. I especially enjoyed the “location-based” GPS technology. It seems like it would take a lot of programming and input of information, but once that is done the program is a great way to get students out there.