Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

Karl Fisch's post on his blog, the Fischbowl, raises an interesting question. Technology continues to become more and more important to our everyday lives. If teachers are "technologically illiterate", are they really teaching their students the necessary skills they will need in this world? Fisch does not believe so and even goes as far as to compare it to teachers 30 years ago not knowing how to read or write.

While I am a huge supporter of technological innovations in classrooms, I feel Fisch takes it a bit too far. There are many subjects, such as history or math, that can be taught sufficiently using an old school approach. While I plan to utilize technology when I become a teacher, I can understand some of the older teachers who are not as familiar with it. Future teachers benefit from college courses such as EDM 310 which can serve to shock them into a state of technological literacy if it wasn't there before. The younger generation of teachers have also had the luxury of growing up around computers. I think the infusion of more technologically minded teachers into schools will be an extremely positive thing, and will progressively increase the number of these teachers until they are the vast majority. But I still do not feel this should immediately alienate teachers who are still a bit uncomfortable with technology. Though I feel they should be flexible and willing to attempt to learn, but it is still far too early into the technological age to make it a mandatory skill.