Our New Era

Lights, Camera, Learning
By Glenn Bull and Lynn Bell

I thought it would be entertaining to find an article from my graduating year of high school, 1997. Our world has faced such a drastic technological change, which only seemed to be a delightful alternative to research 12 years ago. This certainly was a "cultural shift", as they describe it in the article. Moving from analog to digital also sped up our activity online, but it also gave us the opportunity to use computers and cameras; whether it be still or motion, online.

I found this article very interesting for the points it made on the advanced steps with a digital upgrade for tasks such as editing. Editing movies online is simple compared to 10-15 years ago! Not only does this free up ones time, but as an educator, I feel comfortable enough to create movies online for my own classes, knowing our technology has made it easy enough, user friendly as we say. I could apply these user friendly advancements in technology to apply towards a virtual teacher traveling through another time; and article I wrote about last week.

With our youth being the most active on the web nowadays, it is vital adults keep up in order to receive the respect of their students and the parents the students go home to. The article mentions benefits of using digital video over analog with subjects such as history, language arts, and science. The only subject Bull and Bell shy ed away from (after mentioning it) was science. Back then, they perceived using these tools would not be as effective because science tends to have more "hands on" opportunities. I laughed to myself at that comment because now, in 2009, I know the most impacting biology and chemistry lectures I have witnessed have involved a computer simulation of organisms. The pictures from those textbooks are long forgotten but I still recall the amazing simulations created on the computer. We have come so far in a decade!

The article mentions nothing of mathematics. I am interested to see how our computers will help up in that department. For me, that may be the only subject I do not use the computer, or online links to. I'm sure one day, I will laugh at my own comment and rely on it more than a calculator.