National Educational Technology Plan

Diane Chen of the SLJ Blog Practically Paradise forwarded a message on her blog from Julie Walker, executive Director of AASL. Here is the message:

Julie A. Walker, Executive Director of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has asked us to forward the information below widely. I hope you will participate on behalf of all school librarians and our students.

Late in October, I sat in on a webinar regarding the National Educational Technology Plan. If you have not done so already, I want to urge all of you to go to the site: www.edtechfuture.org . The developers are seeking input on all four aspects of the plan: learning, assessment, teaching and productivity / infrastructure. At the time of the late October webinar, the developers expressed concern about the LOW VOLUME of comments they had received. They are particularly looking for examples of districts doing INNOVATIVE things.

I urge those of you who feel that school library media specialists can bring value to this planning process to register and to comment. I noted a number of topics of importance to the field:
Lifelong & Lifewide Learning
Measurement of equitable access to learning resources
Learning skills
Technology literacy
Equality of access (including gap between home & school)

For those of you interested in an overview of the slides from the webinar hosted by the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training (NCTET) and PBS, “Shaping the Future of Education Through Technology” with Jim Shelton, Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, they can be downloaded here: http://www.nctet.org/calendar.htm Please register and comment before the end of the month.

Technology & Schools

A podcast that I listen to - Manic Mommies - was part of an event at WGBH, the PBS affiliate station in Boston, about our digital nation.  Today the Mommies posted a video link from PBS about technology in schools and the video highlights two specific schools and how technology is changing the way they teach their students. I really like what this video is saying - use technology to enhance your lessons and give kids real world skills.

I tend to think that  my school district has a lot of technology, but I think the thing that my district misses the boat on is teaching the students REAL WORLD applications.  I think that our kids should be in the computer lab doing typing programs/games in 1st grade. I think the kids should be learning and practicing how to use word processing programs, spreadsheets and multimedia programs.  A perfect example of this is my district spends a lot of money on broadcast studios in every school, and they are great, except that instead of giving us a multimedia computer with programs like Adobe Premier (or better yet a MAC) they give us an expensive editing system.  The system is hard to use and it is something that the average student (or teacher for that matter) would not have access to at home. It's a great system for a high school, not so much for an elementary school.  Let me teach them how to edit simple video using Windows movie maker (which every PC running Windows comes with) and maybe get a little more advanced with something like Adobe Premier, something they could purchase easily for their home computer.  

I think that schools the schools who find ways in integrate technology using real world applications and that use technology to enhance lessons instead of using technology just to use technology will be the schools that will succeed. Of course the other part to this technology puzzle is training teachers and giving the teachers time and resources to use the technology with their students.  

Well that is enough thinking today... it is hot and sunny here in Atlanta and I think my neighborhood pool is calling...