Comments on Dolors Reig's conference

Today’s post is destined to comment on the salient aspects grasped in Dolors Reig's conference "Educar para las TEP (tecnologías del empoderamiento y la participación)".

An issue she tries to demystify in the conference is the preconceived idea that due to the new technologies our intellect is said to be in decay. This is far from being true since we have internalized new ways of coping with information, processing it at a higher speed and attending to more than one task at a time; I have referred to this in the blog several times, as the ability of "multi-tasking". So, when it comes to our brain's potential we are rewarded and affected positively. However, as Dolors noted, we do find it tedious and hard to memorize encyclopedic fragments or concrete data. Nevertheless, this is a peculiarity inherent to the era we are living in, memory is not as treasured as it used to be in former times.

A further reason to unveil this taboo that revolves around technology, is the fact that we have become more powerful thanks to technology and the Internet for our capacity to judge things, and being critical towards the bombardment of advertising has increased enormously. We are equipped with many digital and cognitive tools that help us to be less vulnerable to public propaganda.

Another viewpoint I found enticing was that not only do we have to teach our students to use web 2 tools appropriately, but also teach them how to disconnect and occupy the rest of their time doing something different. I personally believe this is paramount since this "Techno-frenzy" is aggravating and children seem to be numb. I think it is important for them to enjoy outdoor activities as well, and play with other kids in a face-to-face way for this has positive effects on their subjectivity.

I also found quite appealing her idea of the "sharing-fashion" that is very much present in this new generations. I reckon that we have access to a vast array of information thanks to these new webs that allow people from all over the world to make their contributions, enabling us to pick their brains whenever we have the need to.

Last but not least, I would like to highlight a phrase that somehow summarizes the main purpose of her conference and that we should profit from in our future teaching. She mentioned that the human being is the happiest and is at his best when he/she is actually doing things, creating and actively participating, giving his/her opinion. This is food for thought, especially when our aim is to make the most out of digital tools to enhance learning. We need to get our students to generate and contrue things, since this is a direct way of stimulating their creativity and critical thinking.