Some MIND-BLOWING Technology Facts - And How They Relate to Education

It is often said that technology is the key to the future. Our lives revolve around technology more and more each day. and it does not look like we will be reversing that trend any time soon. The videos embedded above aim to demonstrate this by presenting a collection of interesting and "mind-blowing" facts and statistics concerning technology's current state in our society. They show how much of a role technology actually plays in our society. But what's truly interesting about these videos is the unanticipated purpose they are now serving almost a decade after they were created. These videos act as a time capsule, showing the "current" state of technology in our society 8-10 years ago. What is truly amazing is to compare the facts presented in these videos to present day statistics and to realize how things have drastically, yet not unexpectedly, changed. For example, the statistics on MySpace, however amazing they may have been at the time the video was created, is currently irrelevant due to the extinction of the online social platform caused by severe competition with other services such as Facebook. As trends in technology inevitably continue to change and evolve, we will have no choice but to change and evolve with it.

Despite most areas of our lives becoming more and more technology-centered, there is one area that has been notoriously lagging behind: education. There might be several reasons for this, such as a lack of funding to keep up with the continually changing technological standards, lack of experience from teachers who were not raised with modern technology and are therefore "digital immigrants," or teachers who just do not see the benefit of implementing technology in their classrooms and favor more traditional means of educating children. If we want our students to leave school prepared to compete in the global job marketplace, we must equip them with the technological tools they will need. It is often thought that the more technology that is implemented in the classroom, the more opportunities teachers have to sit back and let the technology do all the work. However, in order for technology to be correctly and effectively implemented in the classroom, the teacher must familiarize themselves with it and use it to enhance, not replace, their teaching. The teacher is still the facilitator of learning in the classroom, and it is up to them to utilize technology in a way that allows students to think creatively and be lead on a journey of educational discovery.