TECHNOLOGICAL PARADOX IN EDUCATION

A 'paradox' is a term that includes in itself a contradiction. And after watching this video, I cannot stop thinking that, as a teacher, I'm in the middle of a big paradox.

In the first place, everybody is saying and telling us (teachers) that we have to be student-oriented; we have to use technology and teach with it. On the other hand, however, teachers still want to do so from the nineteenth-century classroom. Here, my friends, is the PARADOX.

How can we teach our 'Digital Learners' (or millenials) about technology in a class where we use 'chalk and board'? It's simply not possible, and thus, we need to find a solution to the paradox.

I must say that I am still trying to understand how to solve it. I have what it takes to do it. I've researched about the new Web 2.0 ('web two point oh', that's how you say it), and I'm familiar with the nomenclature.

Words such as millenials (the children you will have to teach in the future, and who were born in this new 'millenium'), podcasts (a neologism that blends the words 'I-pod' + 'broadcast'), blogs or weblogs like this one (a 'log' is like a journal or diary), wikis (a web page or site that enables users to share and edit information; the most well-known of which is the 'Wikipedia'), Voice Over Internet Protocol applications, such as 'Skype', RSS ('Real Simple Syndication') readers, mash-ups (web applications that combine data and/or functionality from more than one source, such as 'Youtube', which can be thought of as a podcast + image), slidecasts: powerpoint presentations + podcast [audio], machinima (a term that blends 'machine' +' cinema' = filmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies) and social networks (such as 'Myspace', 'Facebook', 'Hi5', 'Flickr', 'Youtube', and others), which have given birth to concepts such as tagging, Folksonomy, and The Cloud, for instance - all of these things are familiar to me. However, how can I implement them in class, but in a really didactic way? That is, how can we do things with them through which our students can really learn, create, or use their critical thinking?

I write in search of suggestions. Please.