Technology in the Brain (6)

I recently stumbled upon this New York Times article by Annie Murphy Paul, in which she talks about the importance fiction has on one’s brain. In several studies mentioned throughout the article, it is proven that fiction, the ability to remove ourselves from reality and place ourselves within another life, gives us more skills than just having the ability to read. One study shows that reading sensory words affects our brain the same way that actually having an interaction with those words would. Another study suggests that reading about an action affects the brain the same way that actually performing an action would. I have to say, these studies and this article have me wondering: are we focusing too much on actual technology and forgetting about the technology we all already possess? 

I’ve always been insanely fascinated by the way the brain and the human body work. I have also always been enamored with fiction. I love the way that authors have the ability to make their readers feel out-of-body. Something about being able to be someone else, to be able to live their lives and have their friends, or to be able to be there for them and feel what they’re feeling gives a reader the ability to be anything they want to be. But I feel like that comes with the ability to turn a page, to smell the crisp pages of a new book, and to feel the print on the paper. There’s something too artificial about reading from an e-reader, in my opinion, and because of that, I think that people aren’t getting the satisfaction of fiction and reading that they used to.

Along with that, since reading this article, I’ve given a lot of thought to where education stands in this whole dilemma. And I believe that education stands in the way of a student being able to feel the emotions that they should when reading. Teachers and professors force their students to read and think how they want them to about a book that they’re reading and because of that, students aren’t able to fully experience a story. Along with that, at least in my experience, teachers often show the movie version of the book at hand either while or after reading a novel. I hate when teachers do this. Not only are the students shown how the characters are expected to look and how the actions are expected to take place, the film versions are often very skewed versions of the stories. It takes away from what our brains give us creatively regarding the story.

This article gives us wonderful insight into how the technology of our brains is often looked past and brushed under the rug due to tangible technology taking over. There comes a point in our lives where we either have to stand with technology or stand against technology. In many cases, I stand with technology, but when it comes to the magic of books and reading, I whole-heartedly stand against technology.  

Technology "in" Schools (Interactivity #5) (5)

NETS-S Lesson Plan

For the purpose of this activity, I interviewed two separate teachers from two different school districts. One is a tenth grade modified English teacher and twelfth grade AP English teacher in Vernon while the other one is a fourth and fifth grade Special Education teacher in Wantage. Prior to interviewing them for this project, I had observed both classes, as well as helped out with their classes multiple times. Because I had done this before I knew about the technology standards, I didn’t know to look out for whether or not the districts seemed to be integrating the standards into their curriculum. 

When I interviewed the English teacher based on the questions in the NETS Adoption Survey, he seemed a little bit confused about what NETS was in its entirety. He quickly introduced himself to the standards and almost immediately told me that his district has not yet introduced NETS to them. He said that the district has introduced a technology initiative but said initiative was not nearly as specific as the NETS standards. He didn’t really go into the technology that is used in the schools, but he did mention the use of SmartBoards in some of the classrooms, as well as the use of technology as a device to further lessons. Further than that, there wasn’t much else that the district did that he knew of, or spoke of. 

The Special Education teacher was introduced to the NETS standards prior to talking to me, but she only really knew what they were and that was the extent of it. Since I digressed from the survey for her, she didn’t really talk about the integration of NETS into the district, but she did talk about the technology integration in her classroom. However, because she is a Special Ed teacher, her classroom and the other special needs specific classrooms, as well as the library, the computer lab, and the therapy (speech, physical, and occupational) rooms are far more technologically advanced than the general education classrooms. 

As far as I could tell, the technologies at these two schools were the most basic technological integrations compared to what I was expecting in regards to the NETS standards. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting considering I had been in the classrooms before and hadn’t noticed much other technology than the occasional SmartBoard use in Wantage and computer work in Vernon. In accordance to that, I guess I wasn’t surprised necessarily by the teachers reactions, but I was generally displeased with the integration.

As a future English and hopefully special needs educator, I would try to have the NETS standards more fully integrated because I think that they are important in this technologically advancing world that we live in. Of course, when I’m an educator the standards will probably be even different from these ones. I believe that technology in the classroom is extremely important, and in order for it to work, educators need to want it in their classrooms.