The Curse of a Moving Target

Over the past several months, I have had the luxury of developing a friendship with a private industry consultant in the field of creative thinking and problem solving. This individual is a successful consultant in the Chinese market, and I have been able to sustain a relationship with this person through the on line program Skype. Our conversations have covered the gambit, from cooking, to health, to the weather. However, I feel fortunate that this individual has become a mentor, in that he has often taken the time to share his ideas on the potential of the technologies available in this web 2.0 world. Often times, I feel like I need to send him a check, or at least one of my wife's secret family recipes.
In our most recent conversation, I expressed several frustrations I am feeling as an educator in a world where the very technologies I profess to promote, have created a tremendous amount of anxiety within me. Simply, my organizational methodology has always worked from a concrete framework, with identifiable objectives, planned and uniform assessments, and detailed lessons. These powerful technologies, have created an uncertainty as to what technology or methodology I hang my hat on, and how will those technologies provide the students I service, with a building block upon which to begin to effectively advance their learning. In a nutshell, I am having difficulty constructing that concrete instructional framework that will guide my classroom.
At that moment, my friend gave me some insight. Like an individual who has difficulty seeing the forest from the trees, he simply reiterated something I had forgotten. The technologies being introduced on a daily basis, are providing the individual looking to master them with a moving target. This is the curse that these technologies present. Like an engineer trying to build a dam that controls the forces of nature, I have forgotten that these technologies are entering the market, or the work environment in such a manner, that no dam, or framework I ever construct, will ever be able to control their power and potential.
This forces me as an educator to question how I can effectively introduce these powerful tools in a manner that will create a life-long learner in the 21st century. What I discovered, again with the help of my friend, is that my role as an educator in a technologically changing environment, must provide the students with a vision that empowers them for the rest of their lives. This contradicts my personal comfort zone, as well as all of my training. The biggest hurdle I must overcome is the personal need to construct a concrete framework, with defined objectives. I must also realize that I must practice what I preach, and look out to the internet to collaborate with other educators struggling with this same issue. Furthermore, I must become a product of my own vision. With that said, there must still be some order, I just have not worked that out yet.