Journal #1: Do Your Teachers Need a Personal Trainer?

Owens, Aileen M. (2009). Do your teachers need personal trainers?. Learning and Leading With Technology, Retrieved 7/25/09, from http://www.iste.org

No, this article is not about sculpting the physiques of teachers across the nation. The personal trainer the article refers to is assigned to help inform teachers on the advancements in technology and to help them integrate this into their daily lesson plans. It is no secret that technology increases at light speed. Consequently, teachers who entered the workforce as few as only a few years ago can quickly become outdated on the advances and uses of technology in their classes. Funding issues have made workshops and individualized instruction for teachers hard to come by. This article outlines a solution to the problem in which teachers in the Mt. Lebanon School District were assigned "personal trainers" (students at Duqusne University) that helped coach them on the practical applications of technology in the classroom. The students earned school credit and valuable "real world" knowledge of the teaching profession while the teachers were able to get individualized attention on how to improve their teaching with the use of technology.

Are there dangers in the recent movement of digitizing our lives and relying so heavily on technology?
I absolutely think that there are dangers here. The technology movement has already revealed clues that an increasingly digitized society has the potential to become very impersonal, susceptible to invasion, and temperamental. However, technology also offers convenience, access to knowledge, and a global connectedness that we would have otherwise never experienced. I think it is important to teach the dangers of technology as well as its benefits.

Should it be alarming that the Mt. Lebanon School District was not able to finance its own workshops for teachers?
The school funding issue should always be cause for alarm. School funding is frequently the first thing to be cut during difficult times and the ramifications of that are tragic. But, it is refreshing to see that schools aren't giving up and that there are creative solutions to just about any problem.