Technology can create Matthew effects as it increasingly separates the skilled from the unskilled among both students and workers. As a society, we need to be prepared for the changes to come. Most important, we need to educate all our students so that they do not get left out in the technological cold. We need to develop not only their technological skills but their conceptual ones as well. Those who have doubts only have to go through supermarket checkout lines, and watch the look of utter puzzlement that crosses the faces of some checkers when a product lacks the proper bar code.
Technology can bring a wonderful future to our children.
But we have to shape it and teach children how to use it effectively and constructively. We need to remember that technology will not be a substitute for intelligence. It will change levels of intelligence and even what intelligence is. As educators, we need to ensure that the changes are for the better and not for the worse. Photo courtesy of Michael Marsland, Yale University Office of Public Affairs.