History Rant

The authors give us a lovely history lesson about instructional media in Chapter 3. After taking us through the advancements over the last century, they confess that the advancements have had a minimal effect on instructional practices, but they offer no reason why this may be the case. They then pose the question, "Will the impact of media on instruction be greater in the future than it has been in the past?" I am going to have to go with YES. First, we have to take into consideration the training of teachers and preservice teachers. How do we learn how to teach? Sure, we take all of these classes where we learn about learning theory, recite Bloom's taxonomy, practice writing lesson plans, etc., but we learn how to teach like we learn how to do many other things. We watch, we imitate, we adapt. And, for the most part, teachers are still teaching like they did a hundred years ago! In my opinion this is one of the reasons why media has had such a minimal impact in the last century. Being a teacher is hard work, keeping the attention of your students is even harder, and coming up with creative ways to teach is the hardest. When we get stuck, we revert to what we know...the basics of reading, regurgitating, lecturing, and testing. But, we can't do that anymore. Technology is developing at such a high rate that we are preparing students for jobs that don't even exist yet. We are faced with a very real problem. One that cannot afford to dismiss technology. We must focus on giving preservice teachers a foundation in instructional design and technology...one that can guide them as they enter the classroom. I think we have to show them new and improved ways to teach so that perhaps technology does not just become a tool to show powerpoint presentations, but it forces students to develop a foundation for learning this way and ultimately prepares them for the work they will do in the future...