Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Using technology in education wisely

A solid post by Scott McLeod on what we'd do if we were serious about edtech:
  • Show students how to edit their privacy settings and use groups in Facebook instead of banning online social networks because they're "dangerous" and/or "frivolous";
  • Teach students to understand and contribute to the online information commons rather than just saying no to Wikipedia;
  • Put a robust digital learning device into every student's hands (or let them bring and use their own) instead of pretending that we live in a pencil, notebook paper, and ring binder world;
  • Integrate digital learning and teaching tools into subject-specific pre-service methods courses rather than marginalizing instructional technology as a separate course;
  • Understand the true risk of students encountering online predators and make policy accordingly instead of succumbing to scare tactics by the media, politicians, law enforcement, computer security vendors, and others;
  • Find out the exact percentage of our schools' families that don't have broadband Internet access at home rather than treating the amorphous 'digital divide' as a reason not to assign any homework that involves use of the Internet;
(and etc)...leads to a post on the real risk of online behavior by Lee Kolbert.

1 comment:

Jenith said...

"•Find out the exact percentage of our schools' families that don't have broadband Internet access at home rather than treating the amorphous 'digital divide' as a reason not to assign any homework that involves use of the Internet"

We're working on this one at our school...