My Reaction to Fisch's Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

Karl Fisch's Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? is a post from a blog called the Fischbowl. This is an excellent post to read and many would agree since it won the Edublog award for most influential post of 2007. If you've seen Did You Know?, read this because the two go hand in hand. While Did You Know? explains why students of today should become computer literate, Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? explains that many teachers do not have the computer skills necessary to teach students computer literacy.

Computers are an essential piece of education, and many teachers (and people in general) do not know much about computers even though they've been used for years. For instance, the first time I used a computer I was in the second grade and we used a computer program that helped us learn double digit addition and subtraction. However, ten years later when I was in the twelth grade, the only time I used a computer was to write a research paper. That was in 2002, and after 10 years of using computers, all I knew about them was how to browse the Internet and write a paper using Microsoft Word.

Today, the need to become computer literate is very important since so many jobs and careers require at least some knowledge of technology; and with so many people owning personal computers now, there shouldn't be any reasons for being computer illiterate. However, even I am not as comfortable with computers as I should be. To be completely honest, I didn't know what a blog was until I began a class called Microcomputing Systems in Education, and I have learned so much just from the four classes I've been to.

Also, I understand what he means when he says that "many people appear to be rather proud of their technological ignorance." I wouldn't say that I am "proud" of not knowing much about computers, but I have felt like it was okay because so many people I know don't know much about computers either. However, now knowing the importance of using technology in education, I am eager to learn as much as I can so I can apply it in the classroom once I begin teaching.