"Drawing past the Dots"

From TechLEARNING e-Newsletter (May 22nd):
"We've been reading about some wonderful examples of teachers implementing new tools in their classrooms - using blogs, wikis, podcasts, and video - to make a difference in how and what students learn. Yet, as always, the number of examples is pretty small. The vast majority of educators aren't there yet. In this week's collection of blogs, we have two entries that point out some of the problems. Steve Dembo in When Students Have to Take their Learning Underground shows us an example of students who were engaged in learning being barred from doing so by the school. And David Jakes in 9 Dots talks about educators' comfort zone actually getting smaller when it should be getting bigger."

The first article "When Students Have to Take their Learning Underground" highlighted some of the challenges of balancing the use of new social networking and online publishing resources with the growing number of privacy concerns. Parents worried about student's use of sites that allowed them to post their photos on maps or use social networking sites like MySpace, but students countered that they were advanced enough in their understanding of the Internet to avoid online predators or do things that jeopardized their safety. As is usually the case, both sides' concerns were probably warranted to some extent.

The second article, "9 Dots," suggests that few educators are reaching out to new technologies to provide engaging and innovative learning opportunities for today's uber-wired students. The article pokes fun at a group of educators who laughed in response to a question about whether or not they taught MySpace. "It’s time to teach kids how to contribute content the right way, but that’s outside of the reality of what we're supposed to teach, isn't it?"

This article doubles as a call-to-arms for educators to scramble to the frontlines and start using technology to truly create 21st Century learning environments and experiences.

"The gap widens, the disconnect between reality and what happens in our schools continues to grow. Meanwhile, politicians ask potential voters to post videos to YouTube about what they can do to change America. And we miss the moment by not having every kid studying history or civics rise to meet that challenge. Mainstream media recognizes that the the voice of the citizen journalist is a valid voice, and appropriately asks everyone, anyone, with the tools and capability, and with the desire to participate, to contribute news content. And we miss the moment again by banning those very tools from our hallways and classrooms. Progressive companies like Google enable their engineers to to spend 20% of their workweek on ideas and projects not related to their job description (via Graham Wegner). Instead of pondering and pursuing what could be, what should be, American teachers grade worksheets and prepare students for high-stakes tests."