Getting new blogs set up… getting everyone set with their Promethean boards by returning cables, pens, and remotes… and ready to answer a lot of questions the first few days back.

My 14 year old and 18 year old both use the Britannica, an old edition that we’ve had for 20 years. They recognise its usefulness at times over the Internet. But they also use Google ONEKEY when they want to scour the Internet for material they know won’t be found so easily in Britannica. It’s all reading.

It wouldn’t make any difference either, if the Britannica that they used was on DVD (it is available) nor if they accessed the Internet on mobile phone. They’d still be reading.

Ka kite
from Middle-earth

Yes technology is a small part of their lives but if they are using it in their lives outside of school, then how do we change and adapt that to the world within school? It has to be done well and not haphazardly, with our teachers understanding how all of this can work with their subject and their style of teaching.

Plus all of this gets back to the big question of what is education for? Is it to help people become autonomous human beings, capable of learning new things, confident in their person knowing that they don’t know it all? Or is it to turn out students who have no real desire to learn anything new since it will be tested?

Thanks for your comments. They are good questions and for me this summer, I have been mulling over some of them.

They experience A LOT of things not brought into the schools. Past generations of students did A LOT of things outside of school (in their lives so to speak) that was not brought into the school.

Is this a bad thing? Is that really “the” reason to bring technology into the classroom? I would think it is about the improvement of teaching and learning.

If it is about their lives outside of school, technology is simply a small part so what else needs to be brought into schools?

The best thing about it is the capacity. Kindle holds 200 books, more with a $30 SD card. I can’t rave enought about it and the services Amazon gives you with your Kindle. Read up on it. Buy it.