Traditional Methods are Tools, Too (PILOT Reflections)

One often hears that computers and other online instruction methods are only tools, and that they should complement, rather than replace, traditional methods of instruction. But aren’t traditional instructional approaches also tools?

I just finished a week of teaching a Vacation Bible School, and I absolutely love sitting on the floor with first-graders who are raising their hands and almost red in the face, pleading to be called on. It’s hard to imagine what can beat that traditional interaction!

Still, today’s young people — who use e-mails, instant messages, and phone text messages to maintain, instigate, and sometimes curtail personal relationships — may not think of e-mail as the cold impersonal thing that it appears to be when it’s something you only use for work.