Introduction
John Dewey Starts out his book Experience and Education with this “Mankind likes to think in extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either-Ors.” (Dewey pg 17). He then goes on to explain that this is not the way that we should approach education or to make new movements just to oppose the movements that are already there but to look at deeper and larger issues of education. I think that my technological educational philosophy seems to me to go along with what Dewey is saying in that quote. In Gary Fenstermachers book “Approaches to Teaching” he talks about three different approaches the Executive, the Facilitator, and the Liberationist. The executive being the one that just tries to get knowledge into kids heads as efficiently as possible with little to no regard to relationships with the students or even their background. This is very similar to the technology that is very teacher centered such as a powerpoint and lecture. The facilitator is one that facilitates students to learn on their own with little regard to what is being learned. Which is like giving a student a computer and telling them to google anything they want to learn. Finally the Liberationist is one that liberates the mind of the students with knowledge but doesn’t much care for relationships with the students. I think that all of these approaches give a good synopsis of the different kinds of technological philosophies that one could have in a classroom. I think however, like Fenstermacher said in his book, that a teacher doesn’t need to only stick to one style. (Fenstermacher pg 73) I think they should use all of these different styles in teaching not just to become one of the isms as Dewey says but to think of their deeper and larger issues of education. My goals as a teacher are to produce students that can think critically, logically, are socially aware, are lifetime learners, are caring, and can approach any problem and come up with the best solution. Of course when helping students acquire such habits it is very important to consider students history in order to help them learn and develop but I think it is more important to consider their present and their future. These are my goals because these to me are the most valuable characteristics a student can have for their future. Having these qualities will give them the tools, if they so choose, to become good citizens, employees or employers, and have a good family life now and the future. Or in other words they will have the tools to pursue their own happiness and become an asset to those around them.
I think one of the greatest ways that we have of going about this these days is to use the technological tools that have been given to use to use in the classroom. I think the overall goal for student to become a good citizen requires these days that they be a good citizen in not only their physical world but also on the digital one as well. With the resources that I looked at on digitalliteracy.gov 96 percent of jobs use new communication tools in their daily job and 62 percent of working americans use the internet and an integral part of their job. That staggering fact alone makes it imperative that we teach digital citizenship in our schools and make technology usage a integral part of our day to day instruction. Now there are many challenges in doing this. What technology is best? What industry standard do we go with? Which of the many technology models do we use in our schools? How do we teach this technology if our teachers don’t know how to use it themselves? All of these challenges I think should be and could be answered with one simple response that is my education philosophy. That we just need to ask ourselves if using the technology is going to make our students good citizens in the physical and digital worlds. If the answer is yes then we should use it. I don’t think the details of which technology we use or how we use it get in the way of allowing students to have new experiences that will hopefully shape them into better problem solvers in the end.
Conclusion
I have explained my education philosophy and how it relates to technology in that I would like to create students, through considering their past, that have the technological and learning tools necessary to pursue their own happiness. I think these tools are to be able to think critically and logically, are socially aware of other people’s needs, are curious life-time learners, are caring individuals, and can approach any problem and come up with the best solution. I have also explained a few of the ways that I will try to accomplish this task. I hope by doing this that my students will achieve their own happiness and in doing so help me and others achieve their own.
References
Meece, Judith, & Daniels, Denise. (2007). Child and adolescent development
for educators. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.
Dewey, John. (1997). Experience and education. Free Press.
Fenstermacher, Gary, Soltis, Jonas, & Sanger, Matthew. (2009). Approaches to
teaching. Teachers College Pr.
WoolFolk, A. (2007). Educational psychology custom edition for idaho state university.
Boston, Mass: Pearson.
“Digital Literacy Fact Sheet.” Digital Literacy , 2018,
digitalliteracy.gov/sites/digitalliteracy.gov/files/Digital_Literacy_Fact_Sheet_051311.pdf.