Technology use in the Classroom

First, we must address the issue of whether or not Internet use makes us "stupid," as Nicholas Carr infamously asked in The Atlantic back in 2008. Regardless of whether or not you think students are less intelligent now than they were before the advent of the internet, virtually all experts agree that some changes are inevitable in an age of instant information access.

Writing using an alphabet revolutionized learning partly because people didn't have to remember as much. Then again, writing allowed the world's knowledge to be preserved and passed on from generation to generation.

Gutenberg's printing press revolutionized learning by allowing faster long-form copying and distribution of written materials, further eroding the amount that people needed to recall from memory. And yet... where would we be without the printing press?

Most experts argue that the digital revolution has transformed communication on the same scale as these other technologies. Teachers the world over are identifying disturbing trends in the attention span of students in the information age as students are increasingly wondering why they should store discrete facts in their minds when they can simply Google them later.

Where does that leave us at our school? We can probably all admit that the internet and the digital revolution isn't going anywhere any time soon. Is using learning technology in the classroom simply pandering to the desires of millennials? If not, what learning technologies would be appropriate to integrate into the classroom? Is missions becoming more digital? In what ways? Would it benefit our students to consider some of these issues before heading to the field?