Students must see why learning is relevant in order to consider it valuable.
This is a simple statement proved over and over by every discipline under the sun. How often have you heard students complain about how they will never use algebra or history in real life? And yet teachers have been forcing students to learn "irrelevant" subjects for centuries.
How does this relate to technology? Presently, technology is relevant. Reading and writing are not. As teachers, we walk a fine line between teaching what is theoretically relevant (calculus, Latin, handwriting, etc.) and what is practically relevant (economics, chemistry, computer technology, etc.).
This battle is nothing new. But with technology overtaking careers and dominating the workforce, teachers are questioning which subjects are still relevant. Perhaps here we should learn from the past and understand that, while technology is important, technological education should never be the be all and end all of education. Technology vanishes in a moment.
I think the key to this problem is thorough integration of technology and classical education. Students should learn both what is practical, that is, what is useful in our world right now, and what is proven, that is, what was useful in the past and most likely still useful in a world we can only imagine.
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