Technology in the classroom is new and exciting in terms of
Smartboard, which I personally don’t find too invigorating. It’s a fancy
touchscreen board to make interactive dialogic presentations come to life,
expanding the students interested and attention. However, it is not utilizing
technology in a way that advances us.
Makerspaces.
Technology class and shop class revolutionized the high
schools of the 80s pushing the non-academic students into trade-like activities
that made students create with their hands and find purpose through making.
Whether it’s because of developing state standards and shrinking state budgets,
classes like those don’t always exist so easily. If they do, who takes them?
The people that do take them are most certainly not being employed b the
potential of today’s society and the world that we live in as a contemporary
framework. How can we teach our students to move forward in situations that are
stuck in the past?
Developing skills and working with one’s hands is a means of
understanding that we lack in today’s world. Creators and makers are what move
society forward yet those are the things that are lost in schooling. Yes, some
may believe that those are the types of things that can be explored in college
where funding is different and classes are compartmentalized into specific
fields of interest. But how can we expect great thinkers to make when we’re
pushing math, science, and English. That creates potential business majors, not
the people who will find themselves in a place to make.
Here at New Paltz we’re excited about our DigiFab Lab.
Imagine what high school could do with that. Imagine tech class being infused
with all the theology that we possess today. Imagine what students could create
with computer software allowing them to invent object via a 3D printer and CNC
Router, which are the simplest of machines.
Does that not teach math and literacy?
Cheers to that Common Core.
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