Bring it on!!!!

The most important thing I have learned about learning technologies this semester was how much more I have yet to learn! The rate of change for technology is almost mind blowing. One of my favorite parts of this course was our heap assignment because of the most amazing article I read about LT in China. The Professor was teaching to a classroom while simultaneously broadcasting the lecture to university students across the country. Not only that, the distance students images were projected on the wall and they could be called upon to answer a question and interact in real time simply by having the teacher point a light. Amazing! The best thing about it is how quality education can be opened up to so many, and how much richer the educational experience can be.

The sky is the limit with how technology can enhance learning. I think that learning professionals will be greatly challenged to break free of the lecture and textbook formula that has been so dominant in western culture and to incorporate new methods. This change is going to have to occur beginning with how we train our educators. Universities must revamp their programs to include these new methods and new standards will have to be set and new competencies achieved.

When I think back to high school, I was using a hand me down typewriter! When teachers began requiring assignments to be computer printed, it was a challenge for me as my family couldn’t get a home computer. Our libraries did not even have basic use computers at that time. Luckily since my Dad was a janitor at my high school, I was able to come in after school to use the lab there. When I went to college, there were computer labs everywhere and I was very inexperienced in how to use them, but then the internet was really catching on and I learned pretty quickly from there on out. Now, married to a techie, I am pretty well versed in technology, but still it keeps changing and improving. I think about typing on a manual typewriter, and I realize that oftentimes, change is really, really good.