Chapter 8 Rethinking Education

Rethinking Education Chapter 8

The title of this week’s chapter talked about how schools are coping with the new technologies. The authors talked about how in an effort to provide equality of outcomes federal and state policies have emphasized accountability by promoting standardized educational outcomes and pressuring schools to adopt uniform practices in the classroom. This long and confusing sentence basically says that the school officials are becoming worried about the accountability that relies on the schools to teach the children. Their plan to help with this is to instill more uniform practices into the classroom. This practice which was implemented over the past years has had mixed results. What this chapter is going to talk about is how they believe technology can help with this problem.

Assessment was the first topic discussed. The authors believed instead of relying on the instructors to decide when and how to give a test, the students could find the credentials of what they need to do to graduate on a computer. They then can form a schedule and a plan that fits their lives and still allows them to graduate. Students could in the end have a portfolio of credentials for purposes of employment or college applications.

The next section of the chapter talked about new curriculum designs that technology can help with. With technology students can now focus their learning around their goals and interests. In the future the students could decide what their interests are and base their life goals around the technological certifications that meet the goal of their interest.

The final section of this chapter talked about how technology can help equality in the classroom. If we can figure out a way to bring technology to poorer regions that cannot afford it, it will put everyone on an even playing field. They will have the tools and resources that everyone else has, and with this they will have the same opportunity to succeed.

I really don’t think I agree with everything that this chapter talked about. It is cool that you could make a curriculum using technology and have students use this technology to plan their lives. However, I really believe that the current system of education that we have today is working just fine. It is true that technology can enhance the abilities that a classroom has, there is no doubt of that. I am afraid that we may start becoming too dependent. Yea, it would have been cool to only take classes that interested me and my interests. It was the classes that I did not want to take however, that I believe I learned the most in.

In the future I will probably object to the idea of technology based curriculums. I do not believe that they are a good idea, and I do believe it will cause huge problems in the education world. Technology is not bad; it is how we use it that scares me.