A Vision of Technology

Coming from a Classics background means two things for me. First, I love books. Second, I

Technology as Reluctance

will fight a mother grizzly bear to the death to defend paper texts against electronic ones.

Though I never would have expected that even while I am still in my 20's I would be closer to my great-grandmother's perspective on technology than that of the junior high and high school students who use iPods, iPads, iPhones, and iMacs with breezy ease, I still rode the technology tide well into my adulthood. I have a MacBook and an iPhone. I've taken university classes entirely online. I'm even considering purchasing an iPad this year.

But there is an increasingly powerful fire inside me that propels me in the opposite direction of change and the technological coattails it usually rides.

The smell of an old tome of Keats poems, the rough yet gentle feel of an old edition of Homeric hymns, and the absolutely sensual joy of a mug of tea singing my left hand while my right hand strains to hold open a paperweight-sized novel is nothing short of addicting.

For some reason, I just can't find that kind of gratifying addiction in technological mediums.

As a teacher in training, technology is proving to be a small but unremitting stumbling block. Prezis, PowerPoints, and GoogleDocs—the effectiveness of these I can attest to. But crafting lesson plans that can be delivered via an iPad connected to a screen that is aligned with Apple TV? In some ways, I'd be better suited to regress to a chalkboard and a wooden pointing stick.

Perhaps technology continues to be a thorn in my side because of all the new masteries I must achieve as a classroom teacher—content, management, resources—the scariest and most unfamiliar to me are the shiny new tools being produced with alarming speed by the educational technology industry.

Technology, I think, gives me the closest sense of what my students are going through in the learning anxiety they feel. 

My vision of technology in education, then, is blurry at this point and is made up mostly of vague hopes. 

• I hope that the technology in my classroom will increase the curiosity, comfort, and courage of me and of my students. 
• I hope that it will connect us to each other and to the world. 
• I hope that it will gives us mediums of self-expression that we only dreamt of in our pervious paper-and-pencil world. 
• I hope that it becomes an art form and a skill set owned by, rather than owning, young students, old teachers, and everyone in between.