Challenges of the Technological Age
Many of us English teachers and future English teachers feel intimidated by technology in our field. It’s not only the challenges of incorporating technology into our classroom instruction–which include lack of equipment and unpredictability of equipment performance in the classroom–but it’s much more, and much larger than those particular headaches. The technological, or digital, or information (take your pick) revolution that we are currently in the midst of is changing the way we write, speak, and even think. For example, we have students who claim not to want to write in English class, yet they are “published” and eager writers in places like blogs, websites, and Myspace pages. Some of us gripe about using technology in our field, some of us are excited about it, and I think most of us are somewhere in between the two extremes. However we feel about it, technology is here to stay and will continue to change the ways we communicate. Our challenge is to keep up with the wave and remain capable of helping to mold capable and accomplished communicators in the new technological age.
