A Kindle In Every Backpack? What Are Your Thoughts?

A short time back, I am embarrassed to admit when, I did not even know what a Kindle was and now there are some proponents of a plan to give every student a Kindle. While I love the idea of reducing the load in backpacks and the idea of consolidating all of the books that our children read into one neat spot, are we really ready for such a plan? It reminded me of Maine's plan to put a laptop in the hands of every middle school child. There is also a movement to put a laptop in the hands of each child in the world's poorest communities through the One Laptop Per Child initiative. For $199 you can donate a laptop that will go directly to a child in an impoverished part of the world.

Don't get me wrong, I love the concepts behind these ideas and I agree with the premise that our world is getting flatter each day as Thomas Friedman explained in The World Is Flat. While we could easily make a long list of the benefits of putting new technologies in the hands of our students and children all over the world, I still wonder about the implementation of these ideas and whether or not we are providing the training necessary to allow those getting these new technologies in their hands to make the best use of them.

It may be an oversimplification of the whole issue, but I think that we are also guilty of this type of thinking in schools when we spend a great deal of money on technologies (both hardware and software) without a full plan for implementation that includes sufficient training. I know that we are better off with all of the new equipment whether we have the training or not and that some improvements will take place because of the ability of so many individuals to train themselves without a formal plan to support their use of new technological devices/programs.

While developing a more balanced approach is much more time consuming, it is the only way to ensure that are numerous new resources (kindles, laptops, SmartBoards, etc.) are developed to their fullest capacity to support student learning.

Questions Parents Should Ask Their Kids About School

One of my favorite bloggers Will Richardson dedicated a recent post to the anxiety that parents face at the start of the new school year. In Will's case, he has the added anxiety of his children beginning the year in a new school.

In any event, the post left me with some more food for thought in regards to what I want for my children in their school. In fact, I am sure they hit at the heart of the universal questions that all parents have for their children and ensuring that they receive the best education that they can get.

It all begins with a simple, yet profound question - "What did you create today?"

The post goes on to list a number of other questions that we should be asking our kids about what is happening in their school. What would your questions be?

Will sums up the heart of the matter as follows: "As a parent, I think I have every right to expect that my kids are immersed in spaces where learning is loved and enjoyed and shared every single day. Classrooms where they are engaged in meaningful work that makes them think, a majority of time doing stuff that can’t be measured by some impersonal state test. (I can give them software to do much of that.) Where the adults that surround them are models for that learning work themselves. Is that too much to ask?"

TravelinEdMan: 20 Quick Points from "The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education" - The World Is Open

A great overview of The World Is Open by the author, Curtis Bonk. He gives 20 quick points from his book about all of the technological innovations in education today.

At first, I thought that 20 points seemed a bit much, but after I started reading them I could not stop. When it comes to technology and the speed at which it is evolving, 20 points is truly the tip of the iceberg.

TravelinEdMan: 20 Quick Points from "The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education" - The World Is Open

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I Am A Blogaholic!

They say the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem. Unfortunately, I am not willing to make that admission...yet.

It all started with my use of Google Reader. I was amazed with the fact that I could subscribe to certain blogs that I found relevant and get new blog posts daily on these topics. Not only that, but I am able to comment on these articles to the authors and others who share similar interests.

My main topic is education and trying to keep up with what innovative educators are doing in their schools to help their students stay a step ahead. I am currently following these blogs:

• Cool Cat Teacher Blog - I am one of over 9,000 followers
• Free Technology For Teachers - An award winning blog that provides daily resources surrounding educational technology.
• Weblogg-ed - A blog by Will Richardson, the author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. If you don't know this name - you need to.
• TravelinEdMan - A blog by Curtis Bonk, author of The World Is Open, a professor at Indiana University, and the President of SurveyShare Inc.
• 2 Cents Worth - A blog by David Warlick, another name you must know in the field of integrating technology and creating 21st Century Learning environments.

There are a few others that I am following, but because I do not want to give an overwhelming list at this time, I thought I would start with my favorites. My entire list is available over on the right hand side of this blog if you are interested. My reason for sharing all of this is the hope that others will take advantage of these resources.

You can start your own google reader account for subscriptions to blogs on any topic that you are ineterested in. I am confident that anyone who gives it a try will be amazed by their experience. As I have learned quickly in my new found experience in the blogosphere - it is now possible to learn about anything, anywhere, at anytime!

More On The Use Of Cellphones In Schools

I found more on the topic of cellphone use in schools at http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=10277#comments.

Here is my comment below:

The topic of cellphone use in schools is one that I feel has only two possible sides: Those who get it and those who will wonder in the future why they did not get it sooner. It is one of my frustrations that we get sidetracked in such disagreements and faill to see the world outside of our schools changing and at the same time fail to take on the challenge of teaching our students how to use all of the resources at their fingertips in an educational context. Are we not doing them a disservice if we continue to let them look at cellphones solely as a vehicle for social interaction?

Or maybe we should just add this to that lengthy list of items that we as educators "do not have time to do."I prefer to see opportunities rather than obstacles. I do have to say that this conversation came up at my school last year and we changed our policy to allow cellphone use at the discretion of classroom teachers who see the potential that they hold http://burlingtonhigh.blogspot.com/2009/05/bhs-discussing-change-to-cellphone.html.

I am sure that we will have our bumps along the way with this policy, but I think that taking such risks is well worth it. Isn't this what we want our staff and students to do? I cannot wait for the day where we start asking ourselves collectively how we could have been so narrow-minded in our thinking about these tools. I encourage people to read the report by Carly Shuler put out by the Joan Ganz Cooney center in January called "Pockets of Potential - Using Mobile Technologies toPromote Children’s Learning"

A Look At Some Schools Making The Most Of Technology

Check out this great article from the New York Times about some schools that are ahead of the curve in the march towards making the most out of technological resources.

Amidst A Tidal Wave Of Technology Some Schools Remain Virtually Dry

As I continue through Curtis Bonk's The World Is Open, which carries the subtitle How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education, I am plagued by the following summer-themed analogy. Having spent a number of hours at the beach this summer and in past summers, I love to watch my 11-year old catching waves with his surfboard. Many times I see the frustrated picture of my son missing the big wave and not catching the wave at the right moment. But my son has taken the right approach to his love of surfing, he learned to catch a wave by body surfing, boogie boarding, and he has graduated to surfing. Unfortunately, I picture schools in a similar scenario albeit with more dire results. This is due to the fact that we are jumping into the water in the middle of an ocean of technology where the size of the waves is significant this is coupled with the fact that they are breaking fast, one after another. Because of this, it is overwhelming for many in education and many of us are not quite sure where to begin. Despite the intimidating prospect of entering the water, we need to fully immerse ourselves and stop just dipping our toes in.

We need to further our capacity daily and ensure that we are gaining the confidence to catch the new waves of technology that are breaking one after another right in front of us. We have to do this while we also try to catch up with the waves of technology that have already broken on shore. Here are a few more excerpts from The World Is Open that summarize things as they now stand:

• Today's teachers, much like those in preceding generations or even a millenia ago, remain the masters of some content area that must be imparted to students and then rigorously assessed. (p.10)
• Words such as "ownership," "control," "engagement," "relevenacy," and "collaboration" are among those shaping the learning-related dialogue of the twenty-first century. (p.33)
• Jay Cross argues (in his book Informal Learning) that we live in times wherein informal learning oustrips the formal variety. Cross provides a wealth of evidence that both schools and businesses are increasingly reliant on informal learning for daily survival, especially in work-related settings. (p.39)
• The combination of free and widely distributed educational resources with tools that enable learners to add to or comment on such resources or build entirely new ones begins to redefine what learning is - it becomes production or participation, not composition and absoprtion. (p.42)
• Thus, the third macro trende electrifying all of humankind today is the creation of a culture that collaboratively builds, negotiates, and shares such knowledge and information: a participatory learning culture. (p.53)

We have a lot of work to do in our schools to create this participatory learning culture. Fortunately, we have technological resources that we have never dreamed of at our fingertips to allow us to make this work manageable.