Technologically illterate?

I thought this was a great post by Mr. Fisch. I have become somewhat of a fan of his since the first Fischbowl assignment. He makes some very truthful statements that I believe are often overlooked. Seems to me that there are still a ton of folks (mostly in admin positions) that are afraid of "the computer." Why? I'm not really sure. I think part of that problem is because there is never enough tech support. I can count on one of my hands the amount of teacher inservices that I have attended that had ANYTHING to do with technology.

It is strange for us to know and seem technology being used in so many of our everyday activities, yet when it comes to the classroom we want so much of it to be almost prehistoric. Now, I can only base my opinions off of what I have experienced and I have not taught in Mobile County in over 7 years so some of this may have changes - at least I hope so. At any rate, when I was teaching here I had no computers in my class, there were no computer classes offered to my students, I was required to have the old paper gradebook and there was still a card catalog being USED in the library. I also have to mention that this was a low socio-economic school.

Now, when I taught school in Georgia it was a huge step up in the technology department. We had an overhead projector that was shared among grade level. Of course, we had to purchase our own overhead materials and those are not cheap! We did have a tv in each classroom and we were each allotted 3 computers to every classroom. Best of all - no card catalog in the library. I thought I had died and gone to heaven!!! A funny yet relevant point to be made was when I gave a power point presentation to my fellow educators on our new text book adoption. You would have thought I was a genius! The amount of teachers in that meeting that had no idea how to uses power point, much less use any key board short cuts, was absolutely embarrassing. After that I was the teacher the other teachers would come to if they had problems with their computer. Ha! As if I knew what I was doing! Apparently I knew more than them.

My overseas teaching experience was a complete 180 from my teaching in Mobile. The International school of Belgrade had the funds to support their staff in technology. We had a full time tech person on staff. We each had out very own computer plus 10 computers in each room. There was a massive computer lab because every class had computer class twice a week. Every teacher had their own overhead and were given more overhead materials than what we knew what to do with. Yes this was a private school and yes the parents forked out a lot of money to send their students there. But, the money given to the school was allocated properly. Technology was a huge part of the curriculum at every grade level. It was a priority.

I guess my overall point is that I agree with Mr. Fisch. If we are to be proper educators we owe it to our future to be properly schooled in technology. It's not going anywhere and if we are not on the boat we are going to be left behind. I feel that we are already behind enough and it is about time to do some catching up with the rest of the world.