Constant Access

On snow days we have a standing 10:00am administrative team meeting.  Our agenda is to work on issues that we don’t generally have time to have in-depth discussion on during the a typical school day.  On Monday, we had a lengthy discussion about the ubiquitous access to technology.  The conversation included how we as parents manage our own children’s use of technology at home and implications those decisions have on the school environment.

We viewed this video clip from Digital Nation

While we laughed at her interview, several noted that it reminded them of students they knew.  We want an environment where students take ownership of their learning.  However, we fear distracted learners only focus on instant gratification and surface understanding of course content. Finding the balance is difficult.

One of the administrative groups stated this,

For schools to meet the challenge of the digitally nimble, the learner must be engaged in ways that have never before been imaginable.   To lose all sight of the value-added interpersonal relationships that are forged when good teachers teach well is losing sight of the ultimate goal:  to produce productive, reliable students who are able to interact not only with technology, but also with people.

Twenty-first century learning requires that we, as educators, re-think and re-tool to accommodate the pace of the tech-savvy learner.  While technology is critical in this re-tooling endeavor, it cannot be the definitive answer.

Finding the balance is the key.  Otherwise, this happens…..