Summary of chapter 4 The Wrong Assumption

  Because of the rapid development of information and communication technology, the whole society now is changing dramatically from previous decades that many ordinary or dangerous work can be finished better by computers or robots than human beings. In order to cultivate students to understand and use technology for working and living successfully in the future, many schools put technology in their curriculum plan and teach it as a tool for competition through instruction.

  Well, the original purpose of school to prepare students for future is reasonable but it’s really a wrong assumption to teach technology as a curriculum focusing on learning of handcraft skills because the updating of technologies is so frequent and fast that students won’t have enough time to learn each of them. And “today’s students are much more technology-savvy than previous generations” (page 76), they can learn how to use preferable technologies by themselves in many ways. Teaching technology as a curriculum and regarding technology as a tool is not benefit for students to develop a healthy relationship with technology and understand the deeper meaning of technology.

  Instead of teaching technology as a curriculum, developing a digital citizenship in the digital world is more important for students in technology education. In this case, students should be cultivated to a contributing member by using different tools and independent creator with positive attitude towards the digital world. Of course, they need know the nature of the digital world first.

  The digital world is growing and expanding in an inconceivable speed because of the consistent increase of portable smart devices with easy access to the internet like smartphones and tablets. These devices digitalize the world extensively that everybody can take part into the digital world authentically as the information producer and distributor. And with the popular usage of Web 2.0 technology, people can easily post their real life moment to a social network and share it with friends or strangers. As the reflection, comments and praise on network may also impact their feeling in real life. The boundaries between real and virtual world was blurred imperceptibly.

  Like a sword has two different edges, there are opportunities and potential risks in the digital world. For students, internet can provide several ways for online collaborative work, interactive communication and entertainment, but it can also provide diverse ways for them to fall down such as violent game, adult sexual contents, cyberbullying and cybercrime. They need understand that the digital world is not the paradise where full of joy only and participate in the online digital world responsibly.

  “Attitudes play an important role in determining whether people’s reactions to certain situations are favorable or unfavorable.” (page 81) Positive attitude can help students better understand the complexity and uncertainty of the digital world and easily approach technical problems. Students won’t worry about that technologies will replace them in the future if they understand the nature of technology and what technology can do best and what they can do better. Learning and doing with technology for practice is also a better way to establish confidence on using technology and foster positive attitude towards technology.

  As a competent digital citizen, using a variety of different tools to participate in the digital world is important. There are so much kinds of information in the digital world, students should know how to use appropriate searching technology to find reliable information otherwise they will get lost in the information ocean. And they also need know how to choose different software and applications for purposeful usage to actively participate in the process of creating, making and remarking the digital world. Absolutely, using online network to promote collaborate work with others is also an effective way to participate in the digital world.

  As social norms regulate our real life, there are social norms regulating our digital world as well. Some scholar said that the virtual world should be governed by the same regulations which apply to the real world, but actually the virtual world is not just the shadow of the real world that there will be some technical and practical barriers such as anonymous system in the open cyberspace. Although it’s a little difficult to define the regulations of cyberspace, as a digital citizen each student need try best to take step to get involved in the process of forming regulations for better development of cyberspace.

  Well, to develop a digital citizenship for students, the usage of technology is crucial. For example, they can use diverse apps which support instant sharing and participation like Facebook or Snapchat to express their minds, sharing and communicate with others. In this process, they can practice many digital skills such as creating and sharing. In addition, these social media can provide them a big platform for collaborative working that students in different groups can choose different channels to share their observations and make little video meeting to discuss their ideas and form a final presentation to finish their work.