Technology in the Classroom

Yesterday, I saw an advertisement for a new $899 iMac, built for educational purposes. It got me thinking: How do teachers and students use computers? How do they use the Internet? What do they do with blogs? What about wikis? Unfortunately, I don't think that most teachers use the technological tools available to them wisely.

One quick story: In early June, my girlfriend's nine year old son, Evan, developed his own website, with minimal assistance from me. Evan was excited about his website and wanted to share it with friends the next day at school. When I saw Evan after school I asked him if he showed his website to anybody. He explained that his teacher said he was not allowed to use the computer since there was no assignment on it. How sad!! Can you imagine a teacher telling a student that he could not use a pen without a specific assignment?

Unfortunately, most teachers don't know how to use technology effectively. Even more unfortunate is the fact that few curriculum experts are developing educational programs that take advantage of the available technological infrastructure. Nearly all schools still use textbooks and pens and paper regularly as the central instructionals tools. Ten years ago, an education professor of mine told me that he suspected writing with a pen would soon join abacuses as relics from the past.

Certainly, there are many obstacles, such as funding, to providing computers for every student in every classroom. However, I can't help but wonder if at one time people said that pens and paper were too expensive to provide to every student. Perhaps in some schools these basic educational resources are still too expensive. However, imagine the possibilities if we could overcome these obstacles.

It's incredible to think about the types of both short-distance and long distance collaboration that current technology makes possible. Two high school English/Language Arts classes in schools on opposite sides of the county might collaboratively develop an online magazine. Since their teachers likely teach multiple classes of the same subject, there is no reason that multiple magazines couldn't be created. Indeed, this online magazine would not only benefit English/Language Arts classes but it could also benefit social studies, as students learned about social networking and tried to expose their magazine to people across the world. In short, the magazine might enable students to develop increased mastery of each of the subject areas they study in school. Just think about the possibilities, science teachers could collaboratively develop experiments and then have students compare their results in the magazine format. This project would enable students to participate in true collaborative scholarship.

Certainly some resources exist to help teachers think about using technology for educational purposes. For example, the MCI Corporation funds the MarcoPolo Internet for the Classroom Consortium. This consortium contains lesson plans developed by a number of prominent educational organizations. Though, some of these lessons are simply Internet lessons because they are based on the Internet, others truly take advantage of today's technology.

Just a thought!!