Teachers, Don't Try This at School

There are many ideas found online for integrating technology into today's classrooms. I found an article that talked about the most "stupid" things teachers do involving technology. The title of the article is "Seven Stupid Mistakes Teachers Make with Technology," and it is by Doug Johnson. You can view the article here
The first few ideas were not very interesting to me, but it was the second half of the list that I think teachers should know not to do these things. Here is what I found interesting:

1. "Believing that one's teaching style need not change to take full advantage of technology. Using technology to simply add sounds and pictures to lectures is stupid. Smart technology use is about changing the roles of both teacher and student. The computer-using student can now be the content expert; the teacher becomes the process expert asking such questions as “Where did you get that information? How do you know it's accurate? Why is it important? How can you let others know what you discovered? And how can you tell if you did a good job?” The world has changed and it is rank stupidity not to recognize it and change as well."

2. "Ignoring the intrinsic interest of tech use in today's kids. Kids like technology. Not using it as a hook to motivate and interest them in their education is stupid."

3. "Thinking technology in schools will go away. The expectation that "This too shall pass" has worked for a lot of educational practices and theories. Madeline Hunter, Outcomes-Based Education, whole language, and (soon) NCLB all had their day in the sun before being pushed aside by the next silver bullet. (I think that metaphor was a bit confused. Sorry.) But it is stupid to think technology in education will go away. It isn't going away in banking, medicine, business, science, and agriculture - anywhere else in society. Anticipating that "this too shall pass" about technology is pretty stupid."

I completely agree that these are misconceptions teachers make, though they absolutely should not. Technology is changing our classrooms, and this can not be pushed aside or ignored. My favorite comment in the article is number three above. Technology is not a phase, it is the present. It is ridiculous to expect our students to go out in the the world of technology and be successful, but not allow them to use this very same technology as students. Technology should no longer be supplementary, but it should be expected. It is understandable if a teacher cannot use technology because of a lack of school funds. If a teacher does have technology at his or her use, it should be expected that the teacher applies it in the classroom.