Bringing it All Together

• Personally, I see each of these topics as building on one another and extremely interrelated. Relating these 4 reading is relating like soil to roots to trees to leaves, each are different but inherently connected and interdependent. 
• Selfe's reading gave me a wonderful basis and history of the ideas that we covered with the following 4 readings. It's important to not overlook the time a few years ago when such issues were not as prevalent or the same as they are now. History should never be forgotten, and the history of something so relevant and technological literacy is not one so easily dismissed. The other readings helped me to understand just a few of technology's roles in the classroom, specifically social media, race and sexuality. While these topics may seem irrelevant to the public or private school classroom, in this day and age they are always popping up and must be dealt with accordingly. Together, all 5 articles opened my eyes to the somewhat perilous beauty of technology in the classroom. 
• Becoming a teacher is tough, despite popular opinion (yes, you are correct in sensing that I'm a bit bitter on the subject). The problems that teachers face daily are endless, and are related to every problem imaginable: sexuality, race, drugs, bullying, religion, politics, the list is endless. The ways in which an educator handles these issues is where the significance lies, however. The education classes that I have taken so far discuss these topics, and I would have loved to have read these pieces before those classes. Most of the time I feel as though every class that I take, core or pertaining to my major, are vital to my journey as an educator. Reading articles like these help me to further understand the world and issues that I will encounter as a teacher, and I love new knowledge, so I wish I had known it before I had even begun college.
• Most of my former teachers need to read all of these articles. Growing up in the south means that I encountered lots of ignorant, dogmatic folks who didn't want anything to do with my "new-age heresy." While there were exceptions, for the most part my primary and secondary education was filled with the same religious and political views that I personally find to be very out-dated. The readers of these articles don't need to necessarily adopt all of the principles listed in the works, but maybe just have their eyes opened and become a little bit more open minded.