The wild wild west

So, this evening I was able to spend time with dear friends for a 70th birthday party.  These friends act like they are 17 years old but nonetheless are not digital natives.  The topic of the internet, the draft, and social media came up...one of which was a social sciences k-12 teacher and professor who was nearing retirement and wanted nothing to do with educational technology!  He said students didn't engage via technology and the classes he taught recently were frustrating due to zoom screens being turned off.  How interesting...given my experience in the class this semester.  As we talked more, it seemed clear that there was a traditional way of thinking which may have closed the door to any kind of educational technology.  Some of it may have been related to comfort level with technology and perhaps generational.  My friends went on about vivid recollections of TV commercials directing people to the world wide web for information and it seeming like the strangest thing since sliced bread.  He said that the students were totally disengaged from the zoom lectures this past year, but I couldn't help but wonder if it was due in part to his resistance toward technology.  As we explored the topics of international perspectives on social media this week, I've reflected on how culture including generational perspectives can influence social media.  Personally, I feel a weird resistance toward Twitter (not sure why!!) but maybe it has something to do with my level of comfort with the tech platform.  I barely got my mom on Facebook...I honestly can't imagine getting her to use Twitter too.  As educators, we may have own biases about educational technology, social media, and the world wide web that we should be probably be aware of -- the conversations tonight helped me think more about educators in terms of their ed tech philosophy and was an interesting reminder that not all educators embrace web 2.0.