TO TECHNOLOGY OR NOT TECHNOLOGY????

   What?!  Someone is learning from a BOOK????  In this fast-paced world, where we are all being bombarded with how inferior our education system is compared to others and how our children are falling behind, the mantra seems to be that technology and use of it by all students will fix this.  That to me seems to be an oversimplification of a systemic problem in our education system, which is how do we educate children while encouraging them to love education at the same time?  Without a love of learning, children may learn some things, but they will not be life-long learners and this is what we need to build.
  Technology may help with that, but it needs to be implemented in a way that using it improves the teaching itself, i.e. not just using it for the uses sake.  As such, we need to build training on these technology pieces for our teachers and reward them for getting the training.  Our teachers are already overloaded with tasks to do, forms to fill out and lessons to create.  We need to find ways to create a teaching of the technology to the teachers that will enable them to do their job better.  This is the tricky part.
  I have been in my technology class for a semester learning the key types of technology I hope I can utilize in the classroom.  However, am I proficient in them?  Not by a long shot!  It is still a cumbersome process for me to create teaching materials for the classroom from these items, however, it is easier than when I began.  It will take practice and more training.
  My point is that technology IS a great thing but its use is not to be mastered quickly.  It takes dedication and promotion from the administration in a constructive vice authoritarian manner to foster it in the classroom.