Post #1

So, carrying on with Monday's tradition of quality "blogging", here's my first "official" post for EME 2040......

Chapter 1:

So, what did I learn from Chapter 1 of our text? What stunning revelations unfolded before my astonished eyes as I "skimmed" Teachers Discovering Computer's introductory pages?

Well, to be succinct, not a whole heck of a lot. The text seems to be carrying on with what is largely an archaic view of technology as it relates to pedagogy. These classes seem to be stuck in the assumption that the students that they minister to have somehow, inexplicably, managed to abstain from the use of software thus far in their lives. Here's the problem with that assumption: the "digital students" that the text complains are befuddling America's teachers have, indeed, been around for quite some time. In fact, they've become the young educators in the teacher prep programs that the text itself caters to!

Seriously, are there that many people in the Freshman/Sophomore class at FSU that haven't had significant experience with the basic operational skills that Windows requires? Have they been writing every paper they've done for school for the last 10 years longhand, abstaining from Word? Hasn't the current generation of would-be teachers been inundiated by the vagaries of the internet for the majority of their lives?

Why are these classes focusing so much on the practical aspects of technology training? Shouldn't teacher preperatory programs now be transitioning to theoretical concepts of integration of technology into curriculum? I'd contend that the majority of the students in EME2040 are prepared to teach the digital students of today because they are, in fact, part of the generation.

Post #0

Hey, look everybody, we're editing posts! Okay, sarcasm aside, my name's Chris. All of you are going to be forced to read my inane posts over the course of the semester, and I apologize for that. By way of introduction, I'm a soon to be graduate student pursuing my Master's degree in Social Sciences Education. I just finished a four year tour as an officer in the Air Force, which was a pretty interesting experience. If anyone's curious, I was an ICBM Combat Crew Commander, which means that I was essentially in charge of operating rockets with nuclear bombs on them. It made for a lot of interesting stories, at least.

Technology has, for most of my admittedly short life, been something that I've had more than a passing familiarity with. My stepfather, who has always been a technophile, introduced me to my first Commodore 64 (tm) when I was around six years old. I built my first PC by the time I was ten, and have attempted to keep up with the state of the art ever since. I've also utilized technology throughout my professional career, both in the commercial realm and in the military.

If I had to set a goal for my tenure in EME2040 (and apparently I do), I'd probably go with "better learning to integrate technology into my teaching method". Yeah, that sounds at least fairly professional, right? I'm sure that the next six weeks will be fairly illuminating, at least in this regard.