Don’t teach your kids this stuff. Please?
August 26, 2009
398 Comments
dear parent
teacher
administrator
board member
don't teach your kids to read
for the Web
to scan
RSS
aggregate
synthesize
don't teach your kids to write
online
pen and paper aren't going anywhere
since when do kids need an audience?
no need to hyperlink
make videos
audio
Flash
no connecting, now
no social networking
or online chat
or comments
or PLNs
blogs and twitter?
how self-absorbed
what a bunch of crap
and definitely, absolutely, resolutely, no cell phones
block it all
lock it down
keep it out
it's evil, you know
there's bad stuff out there
gotta keep your children safe
don't you know collaboration is just another word for cheating?
don't you know how much junk is out there?
haven't you ever heard of sexting?
of cyberbullying?
a computer 24-7? no thanks
I don't want them
creating
sharing
thinking
learning
you know they're just going to look at porn
and hook up with predators
we can't trust them
don't do any of it, please
really
'cause I'm doing all of it with my kids
can't wait to see who has a leg up in a decade or two
can you?
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Dr. McLeod, I’m a student at the University of South Alabama. I’m enrolled in Dr. Strange’s Edm 310 class. I really enjoyed reading your post. I completely agree with you about wanting to see who has the next leg up. I believe it’s the educators of now and in the future. Your post is sarcastic but in dept of what the real facts are. A lot of what people do can be considered a risk, even walking down the block. Technology doesn’t have to be used in such a harsh way. If taught by the educators correctly to the students, they will be able to understand the rights and wrongs of technology. Using technology in learning allows the children to broaden their aspect on all the new technology around them. Technology being a part of education can help better future opportunities. We should use it in a way that we don’t become dependent on it. There can always be glitches or technological problems.
Dr. Mcleod
I am a student at the University of South Alabama in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. I find your post both right and wrong. In most cases technology (web) is a good thing. However there are certain people that make it very dangerous. Many companies have developed new software that makes “surfing” safer for children. Also along with software if the teachers and parents are more aware of the websties there children are visiting and who they are communicating with then chances are they will be safe also. I do agree with your agrument about keeping pen and paper in the classroom. While technology is a great thing every person still needs to learn how to write and be not so dependant on computers to do the thinking for them.
Dr. McLeod,
My name is Jeni Stovall and I am a student in Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class. I think you have an interesting way of getting people to see that we need to teach our kids from a young age the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors on a computer. I also think that many people that have read this will now listen to it because they had never thought of it this way before. Great job, and I know that your kids are going to be the ones with a leg up, not only in a decade or two but right from the start.
Dr. McLeod,
I am a student in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. I enjoyed reading your post, I am pretty sarcastic myself. I also agree with who will have the “leg up” later on in life. Technology is increasingly becoming more and more involved in our society. I believe we need to teach our children the latest and up to date information. If we don’t, how will they ever be able to compete with others who have had this knowledge? I know there are dangers, but there are dangers everywhere in life. Just like we protect our children in other situations we can protect them online.
Dr. McLeod,
I am a student at the University of South Alabama taking EDM 310. Your post really made me think, and you definitely made your point come across in an unique way. I have to agree that as educators we do need to give our students the tools they need to succeed in this fast-paced, ever-changing technological world. However, we also need to teach them how to do this safely. I believe both can be done. That should be our focus. Thanks for your interesting post.
Dr. Mcleod
I am a student at the University of South Alabama in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. When reading your post, I felt like you were against all of the new ways of teaching our students. Then at the end you made your point that you already are using technology and using it effectively. I agree with you that technology should be used within a classroom to benefit the students. I really enjoyed reading this post.
Hey Dr. McLeod,I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama and I like how you used sarcastic writing style to get your point across. When I fist began reading your post I thought you were serious about your negative views on technology in the classroom. I think there are great advantages to implementing technology in the classroom because it allows them to create, think, and connect to the world.
Dr. McLeod,
My name is Robin Hendricks and I am an EDM310 student at the University of South Alabama. I love your post and the sarcasm that goes along with it. I believe that every generation, from the beginning of time has had something in it for parents to fear or reject because it is something that they are not used to, especially social changes. The only reason to fear technology is if you don’t understand it. I am a mother of a 5 year old son and I have made sure that he understands how to use a computer. I will set boundaries to protect him especially at his age, but I want him to fully understand it and embrace it. I want him to be interviewing for a job in 20 years with one of the kids that you mentioned in this post. The one whose parents refused technology. I want my son to be successful. Great post Dr. McLeod!
Dr. McLeod
I’m Jeffrey Dorsey a student in Dr. Strange EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. I think that your post makes some very good points, but it also has some bad ones. I think that the world is growing technically everyday and everyone needs to has some knowledge of technology. There are a lot of major factors as far as bad sites and predators out there, but all we can do is try to prepare the youth for that. Technology will soon take over the world and who ever isn’t up to date will be left behind.
Dr. McLeod, I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed your sarcastic take on how technology is “evil” and there is no use for it in education. The sad part about your blog is their is a fair amount of educators that still think like this. These “old school” mentalities are what is hurting the reputation of good teachers and administrators that actually do care and what to expose students to the great tools at their disposal. One of my biggest goals once I become an educator is to never stop learning. Technology is evolving daily and there has to be a concerted effort to maintain the knowledge necessary to help prepare students for the real world. That world is dependent on technology. Why can’t that philosophy be accepted by so many stubborn people?
Dr. McLeod, I’m a student at the University of South Alabama. I’m enrolled in Dr. Strange’s Edm 310 class. I love how original your post is. Whether you weren’t being serious or not (I don’t think you were) it came across as real. I have extended family around me that somewhat feels this way. Sure, we as teachers can teach kids how to use technology and what it should be used for, but as soon as no one’s around they are going to explore. You can only limit what a child sees or does for so long. Just make sure you’re honest with them about the dangers out there and be smart about what you tell them and what you shouldn’t tell them.
From an educational standpoint, more technology needs to be in the classroom and we need to think of innovative ways to use more/relevant technologies in school.
Hi Dr. Mcleod I’m a student in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. I found this post quite interesting.
-Meredtih
My name is Bretta Wright and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I somewhat agree with Mr. McLeod on his post. I believe that we should make it a main priority. I think that for some reason these days, there is too much put on social networks and computers. We, as a society forget that we need to monitor children and remember that they need to be watched over these networks. Children can get into a lot of trouble over then internet.
Hi Dr. McLeod
My name is Amanda and I am a student in Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class this semester. You have a very interesting way of getting your point across. I definitely agree that people need to see that we need to teach our kids the difference between how, when, where and appropriate uses for technology. I know that your kids will have a leg up, because you are teaching them right.
Dr. McLeod,
I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I have to say that this post made me quietly chuckle, not just because of your sarcasm, but because it’s so true. It’s almost as if you are saying that parents do not understand the technology, so why should they allow their children access to it in order to learn? Not only that, but your last paragraph especially, makes it sound like the younger generations cannot be trusted to use technology wisely.
Dr. Mcleod,
I am Kayla Williams and I am an elementary education major at the University of South Alabama. I am currently enrolled in EDM 310. I thought your post was very humorous and it made the point of how naive and illogical some parents can be nowadays. Of course technology is not going to disappear and is only going to advance in the future, so it is important to expose the youth to technology so that they may gain knowledge that will be necessary in their future careers and lives.
Dr. McLeod I am a student at the University of South Alabama in the edm 310 class. I certainly agree with most of what your saying. The internet is dangerous and can be harmful to children. I think about my grandfather who never used a computer in school, but can do any math or any subject at that. But I also think my grandfather never needed a computer to do his job, or to communicate with anyone. I guess what I am saying is there are reasons to use the computer and reasons not too. I think it should be regulated and monitored at all times.
Dr. Mcleod,
My name is Hillary Parmer and I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed this post! I especially loved your sarcastic tone. You are very right when you brought out the pros and cons of technology. It is growing so fast that we all need to adapt and learn how to use it efficiently.
Dr. McLeod,
My name is Holly Fore and I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I think you are right about all of the technology only if you use it the wrong way. What about if you use it the right way? It is very helpful and useful then. There will always be people out there that misuse technology to look at bad stuff but, in general if used correctly it will be great.
Hey Dr. McLeod,
I am a student in Dr Strange’s EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama. I am in full agreeance that technology is an absolutely essential part of today’s classroom. We, as teachers, need to integrate technology in as much as we can to get our students ready for what’s our there in the real world. Yes, it is also our job to make sure that they are using the technology for purely educational or inquiry purposes, but with a little monitoring and filtering that would be fairly easy.
Dr. Mcleod,
I am a student in Dr. Strange’s Edm310 class at the University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed your post! Technology is apart of our world and our children need to know how to use it. Those who feel children shouldn’t use technology are only hurting the child. Sure there are dangers on the web, but there are dangers everywhere. Just as we teach our children not to talk to strangers or go off by themselves, we can also give them rules to keep them safe on the internet. There are pluses and minuses to the internet (as there are with anything) but the benefits of technology far outweigh the negatives. Thank you for your post!
Hi, my name is Patricia Radford and I’m in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I enjoyed reading this blog and found it very informational. Many people don’t understand technology can be a great thing for kids if monitored properly. Also, they understand there is danger everywhere and just not on the internet. The best we can do is monitor our kids and also have a little faith in out kids.
Hi Dr. Mcleod,
My name is Courtney Holifield. I am a student in Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama. I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that technology is absolutely something that has to be incorporated within the classrooms right now. Yes, there are many things that aren’t appropriate out on the internet but teachers aren’t going to try and encourage children to search for anything not educational.
Dr. Mcleod, I am at the University of South Alabama. I’m enrolled in Dr. Strange’s Edm 310 class. I really enjoyed reading your post. When I began reading your post I disagreed about kids not using technology. As I continued I agreed with you. Your post is sarcastic but if you read between the lines you will see what the real facts are. Everything people do is a risk, just walking out your front door. Technology is not what most people think it is. If taught by the educators correctly to the students, they will be able to understand the rights and wrongs of technology. Technology being a part of education can help better future opportunities. We should use it in a way that we don’t become dependent on it.
Dr. McLeod
I am a student in EDM 310 and I am are here to bombard your comment section. I think our biggest concern with technology has nothing to do with porn or sexual predators. We should really be concerned with this simple fact: Robots are going to take over the human race. Think about that for a little while and let it soak in.
Dr. McLeod,
I am a student in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. I agree that it is necessary to teach our children how to use technology because technology is such a crucial part of our society. I recognize that there are dangers when using the internet, but if we teach our children how to be safe while using the internet then I do not see why we should ban our children from learning the tools that will get them ahead in life. I really enjoyed reading your post, for it made me laugh. Thank you for writing this post!
Dr. McLeod,
I am a student in EDM 310 ath the university of South Alabama. I understand your post and agree that technology is important for kids to know how to use. But I also think that there are real threats out there that you kind of just laugh off in your post. We need to teach kids how to use these resources effectively. As important as technology is, the essential skills of reading, writing, math and other subjects are still far more important. Thanks for the post.
David
Dear Dr. McLeod,
I really enjoyed your post. I liked getting a feel for the way you viewed our society’s acceptance of technology through your extreme sarcasm. There is a post by Lee Hughes that I can derive some good points from. I agree with the fact that social networking and blogging should be shown to children in an educational light. Facebook and Twitter are primarily used as a way to decide what to do on your night out but given the proper informational tools, students will start to use them to connect with others to create projects with students across the world, compare cultures, share videos, etc. Hopefully given the efforts you are making, Dr. McLeod some of these skeptical members of our educational society will grow to see the many benefits of incorporating technology into the classroom and the danger being done by keeping the web out of their reach.
Dr. McLeod,
I am a student at the University of South Alabama learning more about technology. I enjoyed reading your post and I hope others will find it useful. Sadly, I was one of those people that believed technology was “evil” (I have seen too many Lifetime movies). I am now learning at all the great possibilities that technology can give our students though.
Dear Dr. McLeod,
I am a student at the University of South Alabama in Dr. Strange’s EDM310 Class. I want to admit that I was a bit annoyed with your post at first. It was so obscure and different that I had to read it a few times over just to get a true opinion. After three times through I realized that my comfort zone was being challenged and I had to think to decipher the true message. It was an outside the box approach and would love to know what inspired you to go about delivering your message this way.
Hi Dr.Mcleod,
I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am enrolled in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. I really enjoyed your post.It was very entertaining. I think that technology is taken the place of paper, pencils, and textbooks/books. Technology can also be beneficial to us. Everything that we do has risks but if we learn how to monitor and supervise children on the internet we can benefit a lot from using technology. Just because we have technology at our finger tips there is nothing wrong with still using paper and pencils
Dr. Mcleod,
I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am currently enrolled in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. I liked how you used sarcasm in your post. I agree that children should learn how to use the internet from an early age. Technology is advancing to quickly for us not to teach our children/ students how to use it.
Dr. Mcleod,
My name is Lindsey Gipson and I am a student at the University of South Alabama, in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class.
I enjoyed both your post and your creativity. I know that technology when used appropriately is an indispensable tool. We just have to teach our children how to use it safely. Unfortunately, there are predators out there searching for their next victim. As teachers and parents we have to be careful not to let this fear hinder our student’s learning.
My name is Greta Miller, I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. I enjoyed reading the pros and cons on technology. I think teachers need to teach students how to use computer effectively and safely.
Dr. Mcleod,
I am an EDM310 student at the University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed the sarcasm of your post. What a sad world we will live in, if parents and teachers hold students back from learning about something just because we don’t fully understand it. Those students who are allowed to embrace the technology available to them will definitely have the advantage.
Dr. Mcleod,
For everything that is good there is a bad. For something that someone could tell you a reason to do something, there is always a person there who can tell why not to do something. I believe that your post has done a great deal in making people think. I believe at one point in my education career I felt the exact way as your post reads. I didn’t understand why children would go to school just to be thrown in front of screens when all they are going to do is go home and sit in front of a television. (And we wonder why our society is fighting obesity.) The reality of the internet is it is a tool. With tools a person can use them the right way or the wrong way. In all cases we should best keep our children safe. However, I don’t believe we should hinder kids from the world we are living in just to make them ignorant, unable to relate, and later in life resent not knowing things. It is always best to keep in our heads the knowledge of how things are today but, we don’t leave the basis of learning just to accommodate to the world of education we are in now which is mostly computer based. I enjoyed reading your comment and loved the last statement. I do believe your class will be prepared for the next decades to come and in their careers. I am a student at the University of South Alabama in EDM 310 and once again thank you for the read!
Hello Dr. McLeod
I am a student in Dr. Strange EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama. I found your poem to be very interesting. I had to reread it and look at the comments before I fully understood what you were saying. You stated many true statements. I think we should protect our kids from all the negative things the internet holds. Kids should be allowed to use the internet because it has more positive than negative effects.
Hello Dr. McLeod
I am an EDM310 student at the University of South Alabama. When I was first reading your poem I was a bit confused, thinking why should we not teach our kids to read, write, or use technology, but after I read it again I realized what you were trying to say. Why keep our kids from learning these things just because there is a negative that usually follows? We should teach our kids to use these things responsibly
Hey Mr. McLeod,
My name is Darrius Mooney and I’m an EDM310 student at the University of South Alabama. I agree with you wholeheartedly! This is the 21st Century where technology rule. Most parents and educators are stuck on the traditional way of life and teaching, which is okay. But nowadays without being well rounded in all things technological you are lost.
Hello, my name is KaShondra Rudolph. I am an EDM310 student from the University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed your blog post. Your post made a very great point in a sarcastic way. I have realized that there is both good and bad in everything we do and use in the world today. Technology especially, can have its pros and cons, but it is up to us as educators to help make the best of technology for our students. No a days, technology is one of those things that students must be introduced to. The future jobs of students today will all be technology based.
Hi my name is Brandy I am a student in edm310 at the University of South Alabama. I believe in some of things you said should not be taught or used. For one this young kids do not need cell phones. If they need to talk use the house phone or go visit. And I agree that tings like twitter is for to self absorbed to be used in a class room. I a teacher must use blogs they need to make sure the software used to protect the students is good. I have a deep fear of letting younger children have blogs because you don’t know if the other person is an online predator or not. I am glad someone shares my view.
Dr. McLeod, This is a very interesting and provocative take on the subject of technology especially from the classroom teacher’s perspective. I’ve just finished an online course entitled Communicate and Collaborate Online. Even though this course was specifically designed for classroom teachers who develop a final project using Web 2.0 technologies to engage and encourage students to communicate and collaborate online I came at it from the perspective of being a teacher of teachers. So, teachers are my students. These are mostly mid-career changers coming into the teaching profession who are very familiar with technology on a business and personal level and possess these 21st century skills that we see as so important for student’s to learn in order to do well in college and careers later in life. However, these teachers may not be as familiar with using these Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom setting and often run up against roadblocks from colleagues, parents and administrators when trying to incorporate these technologies into their teaching. We often say about our teachers that they just don’t know what they don’t know. Well, neither did I. It’s real work to develop a meaningful and purposeful online course or component within a course. It takes hours of planning getting it ready to go so that students know it’s rigorous and not just busy work. Incorporating these technologies in this online component certainly opened my eyes to the obvious shift in power toward the students. It helped to facilitate giving students opportunities to practice mastering the material at their own pace. I could clearly see where the technologies supported the activities. Also, the students appreciated a structured, logical flow to their course. They liked learning how to organize assignments and activities in order to minimize confusion. Here the technologies supported how to organize and communicate course materials and expectations. It really allowed me to think of teaching as facilitating learning. Teaching with technology helped me to create learning experiences that complement each other whether the assignment was online or meeting in a face-to-face environment. It really drove the point home to me that student-centered teaching means creating assignments that allow students to practice building connections with the material, and evaluate their learning. The technologies helped students take ownership of their learning. It changed my mind completely about the rigor and relevance of online courses or online components within a course. I’m a true believer now in the importance of developing 21st century skills in teachers and students alike.