I can’t really think of a way to start this post. Answering the assigned question about I-phone and I-touch apps in the classroom seems like the obvious choice, but through the hard work of the featured blog posts and websites, the question has already been answered!
To me, the bigger question will be whether the educational establishment will ever embrace mobile technology in the classroom. The administrative offices and classrooms of so many schools are still reigned over by people of a certain age and mindset, people who see technology as a novelty instead of a significant icon of the new millennium. As quoted in one of our suggested readings, E.D. Hirsch of cultural literacy fame refers to mobile devices as “technological gadgets.” To refer to emerging technology in such minimizing terms shows a lack of understanding of its true weight and importance in our modern culture. At the risk of repeating myself, I will say again that technology is not going away. Period. You can deny it, resist it, declaim it, decry it, ignore it, bemoan and bewail it, but it is (and I repeat) not going away.
Yes, I know that there are many procedural issues that have to be resolved before this type of handheld technology can be seamlessly integrated into our classrooms – consider the battles that many districts wage with cell phones alone – but we have to quit considering these applications as the wave of the future and relegating them to mere frivolity.
If our goal is to meet our students where they are, to engage with them, to connect with them on a level that they know and understand, then we’re going to have to put the chalk down and begin scrolling from one screen to the next…
2 comments:
Absolutley true, but I know a cetain 50 something teacher who would disagree with you! Just the idea of cell phones in the building raise her blood pressure.
the only thing wrong with this perfectly crafted explanation of things as they are and should be is that it is not on a billboard on the Katy Freeway for all to read...and unfortunately, the people who NEED to read it are not going to come to this blog to read it!
as to the ones who have blood pressure issues...they better start laying in a large supply of medicine because the change is here, the dam is broken and there is no holding it back any longer...
in other words adults better get with it or get outta the way!
thanks for your words!
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