In a book entitled "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success", author Carol S. Dweck points to motivation as an even greater indicator of success than previously thought.  More often, she proposes, success in one's work comes as a byproduct of one's passion. 

It's true, findings indicate that the most successful people are those who would be doing the exact same job even if they weren't successful at it. In education, this means that the most successful teachers are likely to be those who actually enjoy teaching and thus approach their jobs with passion. 

"There's an underlying 'disruptive' strain to #edtech that is, from my perspective, disconcerting. It seems that certain proponents of #edtech are pushing technology in order to completely 'teacher-proof' the classroom. That is, altogether remove teacher judgment and autonomy from the equation. Let us not pretend that this is something new; we've seen this before with "programmed instruction." Sure, the technologies are more sophisticated, but the intentions are similar."

While most people sympathize with the plight of skilled workers who've been replaced by computers, even more people admit that they do their jobs more effectively through the help of technology. Not to mention all the people whose job descriptions would not exist without technology.

"You can’t blame educational technology for the governments policies on standardized testing or the implementation of those policies... It’s not about replacing chalkboards with interactive white boards, it’s not about replacing teachers with systems that can’t respond to a learners individual needs. It’s about creating an environment where learners have access to multiple perspectives and processes, where they can explore ideas, where they can play and tinker and create. It’s about creating an environment where learners can fail gracefully and, through the help of facilitation, learn how to succeed the next time around. It’s about bringing the benefits of our global knowledge ecosystem into the classroom so that learners learn how to live and be in today’s world."

Moving beyond the blogosphere, Hilliger references a study by the U.S. Department of Education for scientific support of a systematic overview of more than a thousand empirical studies on online learning from 1996-2008. The analysis shows that students in online learning courses actually performed better than students receiving instruction face-to-face. So it seems education technology is here to stay, and not just "for better or worse." When used by the better teachers, education technology is likely to produce better students.