Even the Great Ones Need to Keep Up

There are lots of great teachers who never use technology.  There are so many things that go into being a great teacher that it is possible to be one of the best without electricity.  Great teachers inspire you.  They make you want to learn.  Their students are rarely absent, because they truly enjoy being challenged and the feeling they get when they accomplish what they didn't know they could do.  

Still, I would argue that those great teachers are not preparing students for their futures as well as they could be.  It is a major mistake to fail to account for the change that technology has brought upon the world.  

The workforce, the jobs themselves, the way we communicate with one another, the drastically changing rules of discourse in an online and always connected world, the ever changing ways in which we need to be aware of our online selves, the way we seek and scrutinize information that is ubiquitous and free-flowing, the list goes on-and all of it has a major impact on the world we are preparing students for.  

Failing to recognize or prepare students for that world is a mistake.  Even the best teachers cannot say that they are preparing students for life if they fail to recognize that life has changed dramatically in the last decade.  

The best teachers are models of life long learning.  We have to keep up to serve our students well.