Using Technology Organically

In the article "A Range of Use: Technology in Learning" author Cheryl Lemke talks about some of the ways that technology can enhance learning in a natural way. She says that technology has three major uses in the classroom: being a driver for change, being a bridge to higher academic achievement and being a platform for informed decision making and accountability. The focus of this article appears to be on using technology to get students excited about learning, since it has been shown that students who are engaged and excited about school achieve higher academic success. This is incredibly important to classroom teachers because it means that we can't just have students do part of their work on a computer and expect them to reap the full benefits of educational technology. Instead, we need to make sure that the technology is being used in a way that both enhances the content and interests the students. If we can use technology in a way that makes our teaching more personal and in depth without seeming forced the students can benefit immensely.
The article "Evaluating Information Found on the Internet" focuses on how the internet requires a whole new set of skills to determine whether information is valid or useful. Although the internet has greatly added to the ease of research, it has also made research more difficult by providing a lot of information of that is not reliable or true. The author discusses several different categories of knowledge that are needed to accurately assess whether information found online is reliable. As teachers it is important to teach our students how to determine what information they can trust because as learning becomes more individualized students will need to have these skills. If students aren't sure how to tell if a web site is valid, they may rely on inaccurate information that could negatively affect their academic or personal success.