Week 4 - Digital Media - New Learners of the 21st Century

The PBS video "Digital Media - New Learners of the 21st Century" was really interesting enlightening on how areas are helping students to reach their potential with the tools of the 21st century.  

I particularly like the quote in the video about "If we teach today's kids the way we taught them yesterday we rob them of tomorrow".  This rang true to me as we are working towards new ways to integrate technology in our school.  I have found that the more I want to integrate the harder it is becoming mostly due to resources.  There are tools in our school but sometimes the bureaucracy about obtaining it makes it very difficult to want to use the technology.  Yet this is what we need.  I feel that if the administration and the Superintendent are not feeling the same way then it makes it even harder for the teachers to get what they need.  Funding is always an issue but there are so many ways around that now with grants and sales.  If the whole building or district could work towards a common goal of 1 to1 technology use then it would be so much better for the students.  

I feel very strongly that teachers need the resources available to them on a day to day basis.  The idea of signing out and sharing netbooks, or ipods or ipads or even projectors is ridiculous.  I was part of a grant that our school got to research the use of 1 to 1 technology verses technology that was shared between two teachers.  The grant was the ARRA Title IID and Somersworth was awarded approximately $250,000 to conduct this research.  I was part of the beginning of the research and then was moved to another grade level so I was not able to keep the technology that was part of the grant.  Having gone through the year with having the technology accessible whenever we had a question or so forth was extremely useful, the students were engaged and behaviors were rarely a problem.  The following year I did not have the technology readily available so I found it very difficult to integrate it more because I had to hunt down the cart and then make sure that no one else was using it and then make sure that I got it for the day that I wanted it to be with my lesson.  It became very frustrating so I found that I did not use technology as much as the year before.  The schools in the video that show students engaged and wanting to learn because now the learning is taking place with materials that they are much more familiar with than we can even imagine.  It really gives them the support and desire to learn how to do something when they can get the information right away.  I think this is what our schools need on a regular basis.  We need more technology in our classrooms and we shouldn't have to worry about will the tools be available on the day or time that I might need them.