Technology vs Story Telling

When I sit and think back to all the favorite teachers I had and what I learned from them, one always stands out in my mind.  Billy Brown, who was  ''probably best known for being an eighth-grade history teacher who had a gift for teaching more from experience than from a textbook.''  Mr. Brown was an artist, a photographer, an author who wrote Mullet Roar, a hunting and fishing legend in Eastern North Carolina, and a proud Vietnam veteran.

 He brought history to life through vivid and detailed stories about our surroundings as well as far away lands such as Vietnam.  He told us first hand what war was truly like, holding back only the goriest of details.  90% of his class consisted of sitting and listening to his stories, but I guarantee no student was ever bored or dared to interrupt him.  There was none to very little use of technology in his classroom but I feel that I learned more history ( that I remember to this day) than I ever did from any other history teacher who used presentations, videos, and other visual aids and technology.  Obviously every teacher could not and should not conduct their classroom in this manner but I feel it does have validity within the educational system.  Story telling is an art as old as time and as each generation becomes more and more dependent on technology, I feel traditional social customs, such as story telling, are becoming obsolete.  How do you feel about a class structured in this manner?