Is It Okay To Be A Technology Illiterate Teacher?

Today I read the blog Is It Okay To Be A Technology Illiterate Teacher by Karl Fisch. He had some pretty powerful statements about teachers who are technology illiterate. He believes that there is no excuse for teachers now days to be illiterate in technology. He compares technology illiterate teachers to people who cannot read. Karl Fisch states, "If a teacher today is not technologically literate -and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write."I have to say that I agree with him on this. If you are illiterate with technology, then it is going to be hard to survive in the education field. Technology has grown so much and it definately is not slowing down. If we, as teachers, do not step it up and learn this technology then we are going to be completely useless to our students. I feel that it has gotten to a point where the students now know more than the teachers. In fact, I have a professor who is very technology illiterate. She cannot seem to figure out how to use the PWRS clickers in the classroom.She will spend 30 minutes of the classroom trying to figure it out and then she gives up.(we have still never used the clickers). Although this is a new technology, the students have to tell her how to use it. In a way, having a teacher who is clueless about the technology we use is a total turn off for me. I feel that she will not be able to teach me anything that I do not already know. Now, this may be a little extreme but technology is the backbone of most of my courses. I strongly believe that upcoming teachers need to be required to be literate in technology and forced to continue their education when new technology arises.
Karl Fisch also states that many teachers and people seem to be proud that they are technology illiterate. I see this happening everyday. For example, I have many teachers who state that they have no idea how to use the computer. Also, on a daily basis I hear employees state that they do not know how to work their registers. They try to use the technology as an excuse to not understand or do the task at hand. We all just need to grab ahold of technology and learn atleast the basics. After all, we all know technology is not getting any smaller, it is only growing. By the time the students we are teaching in elementary school graduate, technology is going to be so much more advanced. We need to take responsibility and be able to teach our students everything they need to know about technology. Karl Fisch states that in order to teach it we have to do it. We need to begin our education now and be committed to learning new things about technology. Everything we know is going to benefit our students and ourselves.