Blog 6: Article Review

I both agree and disagree with the content of the article below. Yes, technology has advanced rapidly within the last 5 to 10 years, and it still is. I also agree that individuals are turning more towards video sites, but I disagree when the author says that reading and writing are “very artificial and unnatural ways to communicate, store, and retrieve information” (Prensky, 2010). I know that in this digital age more things are becoming more technology driven, but I think that future generations should still know how to write and read. The author gave a warning before he talked in depth about why reading and writing is no longer needed, but I continued to read. I probably should not have because as a pre-service teacher, I had to disagree with everything he was saying. Yes he made valid points about how there is some type of communication technology that can make up for writing and reading skills, like recorded stories or the kindle reading the text. However, he failed to mention a few other factors, like reading a menu at a restaurant, or searching or reading movie titles. Yes movies are a digital story, but the viewer has to be able to read the title.

As a future teacher, I plan on using technology in my classroom as much as I can. I agree that students in today’s society learn better and can be more creative with technology, but not every school as access to the same technologies out there. YouTube I think is a great resource. Like the author mentions, I think YouTube is great when it come to allowing people to just communicate and share their point-of-view to other viewers; plus YouTube is great for how-to videos. Unfortunately many schools have YouTube blocked because of the inappropriate content. Hopefully, my future school sees the positives that YouTube, and other video sites, have to offer, and does not block them. Because I think digital media, especially videos, are a creative way for individuals to express themselves. So as a future classroom teacher, I hope that I can show my administrators the plus side to YouTube and other video sites (if they are blocked), so I can have my students create and post videos to a class video channel. However, I do expect to teaching my student reading and writing skills because I do not plan to see these skills vanishing during my teaching career. Just because there is technology that can “do” these skills does not mean that they are still not necessary to learn.

            Does this mean I do not think that eventually there will be a type of technology that will take over reading and writing skills for everything? Absolutely not, I think that eventually there will be, but I think that we are still a long way away from that point when writing and reading skills are no longer necessary.

Prensky, M. (2010). Why You Tube matters. Why it is so important, why we should all be using it, and why blocking it blocks our kids’ education. On the Horizon, 18(2), 124–131. doi:10.1108/10748121011050469