Technology - yes or no?

I really like what Cynthia Selfe has to say about technology. Her thoughts seem to align pretty closely to my own when it comes to the role of technology in the classroom.

She is spot on when she says that teachers must incorporate technology not only into their classrooms, but also into their own lives. Students are using the technology every day. As a teacher, I have two choices. I choose to ignore the technology around me. I can avoid email. I can pretend that text messaging doesn’t exist. I can remain clueless about things like MySpace and Facebook. I can pretend like the world has not changed in the last twenty years and that I can go on living the way that I did when I started school. I could choose to look at technology this way, and I can give up any hope of reaching the students who come into my classroom. If I remain in the dark about the technology that my students are using, I am choosing to ignore one of the biggest influences in their lives. I will never be able to really connect to students if I am unable to speak to them in terms that they can understand.

Having said that, I also have to be aware of how I approach the use of technology in the classroom. I can’t just assume that every student I meet will have equal access to all forms of technology. If I am trying to incorporate technology into my classroom, then I have to be very aware of the opportunities that my students have to use this technology on their own. I have to be able to provide them with the technology in the classroom, or assure them that they will have access to it somewhere else. If I assume that they all have a computer, I turn the technology into an oppression rather than a liberation.