Tech-Phobia

New technologies appear every day.  Once you get used to the new phone or social media site the next one pops up. It seems impossible to keep up with it all.  While some teachers are ready to embrace change others are a little frightened of it. After all, you've been teaching a long time and you know what works.  If it ain't broke, why fix it, right?  The problem is the rest of the world doesn't hold to that.  Change is inevitable as they say.  Our students are inheriting a very different world than we grew up in (this could be a blog post in and of itself).
But just because things are new, doesn't mean they have to be scary. After all, everything was new once right. Televisions, cars, telephones, electricity were all new technology once. And for each one of these their were hold outs unwilling to change the way things always were done. I remember reading a story as a child about a woman in the early 1900's who refused to turn off her newly installed electric lights because she was afraid she would be electrocuted. After weeks of little sleep, someone came to turn them off for her. When I read this it seemed silly. Who would be afraid of what we now use everyday?

This is not to say that change isn't scary. It definitely is. All this means is we should all keep an open mind and allow ourselves to learners, too.

-Michelle Bothel