Reaction to November Article

I remember my family's first computer.  It was an IBM that had a tower the size of a 2 year old, and it was equipped with only a floppy disk drive and a connection for a dial-up phone modem.  It took about 20 minutes to power on, and about 5 times that to connect to the internet.  E-mail was non-existent in the household until I was about 12 years old.  I was still handwriting essays, and I frequently made trips to the town library to access their hardcover encyclopedias for information.  Now, my household is on the complete opposite technological spectrum.  We have wireless internet in which my 2 laptops and desktop can connect to simultaneously, and I can be browsing the internet within 10 seconds of powering on my computer.  I can't even tell you the last time I visited the library to do literature research.  Technology has never been faster or more accessible, and the article by Alan November brought up some very interesting points.  As November stated, "...technology could get us into trouble in ways that we might not imagine."

November's story of the student who visited a trusted academic site and claimed that the Holocaust never happened disturbed me.  What disturbed me the most was that this student was so ready to disregard his knowledge of the Holocaust that he has been taught throughout several history courses over one lousy website.  Although it may have seemed logical when read, this student should not rely on one website as a source of his information.  His intellectual curiosity should have been stimulated, but this should have lead to further research into the topic.  Although November mentioned the "link" to the Hate Directory as being almost a necessity for students to know, I never heard of it and I know not to believe everything I see/read on the internet.  I agree with November that students need to be taught to discriminate against certain information as well as think about it before they come to conclusions.

November asked a question, "what will the impact of having live video in every classroom at every school be on education?"  I'd like to say that it would definitely help minimize the gap between families and school.  I think this idea is great in that it connects areas that sometimes have a hard time of communicating.  Parent/peer involvement in school activities is vital to a student's success, and I believe the live video stream would be very beneficial to both parties.  It would help build teamwork, and that's never a bad quality to have.

All in all, I think technology is essential in a classroom.  It builds upon traditional teaching methods and allows students to explore new areas of knowledge at the click of a button!