It would be hard to find anyone connected to education that would not agree that a change is over due. Not to say that change hasn’t and isn’t already occurring, but the next steps will be more dramatic and, potentially, uncomfortable for all involved. Working off a model of education that was developed during the industrial age our system has changed to meet the needs of our changing society, but only from managerial standpoint. We have changed things like the length of the school day, the number or periods in a day, added extracurriculars to the schedule, integrated technology, developed specialized programs, included counseling services, developed school to work programs, and the list goes on. Although these changes have positively impacted our students they have not made us better at educating them. So how is it that nations that send their students to school significantly less have higher acheivement scores? (more…)
Life in the cloud
Soon will come the day when your computer will be a digital portal to the outside world with very little being stored on the hard drive. Actually, the day is here but most of us don’t view it that way. Most of us are creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets that we save on our home computer so we can easily access them at a later date. But what if we could save all these files remotely, in the cloud, freeing up our hard drives and allowing 24/7 access from anywhere in the world? An added bonus is we would also free our home hard drives to run faster extending the life of our home computer. In the words of the immortal Chris Farley “That would be awesome”. (more…)
Technology Toolbox
What are the goals of technology in our classrooms? At first glance the list of answers to this question may seem a bit obvious, one that starts with research and ends with creating presentations. These are not goals, however, as much as they are outcomes. By “goals” I mean how do we want our students to use technology, what is the thought process? If technology is a tool how do we want our students to use these tools? Initially they would need help determining what the best tool was for each job, most of us learned this by taking on the role of gofer helping our parents around the house. Over time we learned the best use of each tool. Over time we were able determine which tool or tools were best fit for the task at hand. I suggest that we should have the same goal for technology in our schools. The inherent problem with this concept is that most schools can not afford to supply every student with a full technology tool box. (more…)
What is cyberbullying?
“Cyberbullying” is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones (def. from stopcyberbullying.org ). It can only happen between non adults, once an adult is involved it becomes harassment or stalking. (more…)
