Finding the Middle Ground: Balancing Technology and Traditional Education

Working Thesis:
Technology can be helpful in education when used in moderation. However, it should not replace traditional instructor-taught learning, but should supplement it.

Preliminary Exploration:
-Posts on Disrupting Class
-Playlist on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ0uEtt00EyPudmz-nUsBBwcMmJgplv8v
-I made a list of helpful sources in my post that I created before reading Disrupting Class: http://teamstarbuck.blogspot.com/2013/10/education-and-digital-culture-in.html

Relevance:
-To Digital Culture: Technology is a hot topic in education right now. This topic is very relevant.
-To Specific Audience: Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in how to use all of the new tools that are available. My project will allow educators to take a step back and realize that technology is best used as a means to an end rather than the end itself.

Format:
Editorial or Editorial-style blog post

Outlet:
Potential outlets include:
DHQ Editorial (http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/submissions/index.html)
Guest Blog on Edutopia: (http://www.edutopia.org/contact-us)
Guest Blog at Edgital: (http://www.edgital.org/guest-blogging/) Note: This outlet would require that I focus in more on informal education. Right now my focus is on public education.

Curation:
-Disrupting Class-- I feel like this book argues for too much of an emphasis on technology, rather than a balance.
-TED Talks: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ0uEtt00EyPudmz-nUsBBwcMmJgplv8v
(The )TED talk by Paul Anderson was especially relevant.)
-Anderson's website: http://www.bozemanscience.com/about/
-I made a list of helpful sources in my post that I created before reading Disrupting Class: http://teamstarbuck.blogspot.com/2013/10/education-and-digital-culture-in.html
-A personal interview with a middle school teacher who received a grant for each student in her classroom to receive iPads
-Independent Study's website: https://is.byu.edu/site/about/coursetypes/tl.cfm (explaining a balanced course model that integrates both technology and the influence of a teacher)

Social Proof:
-My roommates have given me a lot of input into ways that they have seen technology successfully and unsuccessfully used in classes (one of them hates Powerpoints; the other has found that technology has hindered her attempts to research (she says that she needs to become more familiar with it before it will really be useful to her))
-Interview with a middle school teacher: She has found that increased technology in her classroom has pros and cons, but she says that overall she likes having more technology in her classroom.
-I also plan to speak with a public librarian tomorrow evening to get her input.

Next Steps:
My next step will be to write a draft of my editorial. I'm interested in seeing how I will be able to talk about this in an Editorial or guest blog rather than a more traditional scholarly source. I think I will need to rely more on personal experience and insights with minimal external sources, which will be tricky. Because of this, I want to run my draft by someone before I finalize it.