Second Class

Web 2.0 tools offer great promise for 21st Century learners, but...how are we going to keep the great digital divide from disenfranchising students in smaller school districts with less ability to move toward 1:1 initiatives? I have taught in very small schools, as well and a district of 53,000, and I can tell you, smaller schools have fewer funds for technology, and often have older equipment than urban schools.
My district is very good about keeping up with technology even though we are in a town of only roughly 12,000. Yet my Community Ed program reminds me of a lot of the smaller schools I've taught in. While I try to integrate moodle, wikis, blogs, and other Web 2.0 tools, I have to do it with six classroom computers that, frankly, are fairly old. Despite the generosity of our tech department and my own willingness to spend some of my own money on things, we have a ways to go to live up to the Web 2.0 promise.
What about cash-strapped schools which can barely afford the basics? What about districts so attached to a 20th century teaching tradition that they haven't quite understood where we are going?
People have speculated for years that America was going to see a new class division between the Haves and Have-nots of technology. Is this division manifesting itself in our schools, a divide between students in districts on the cutting edge of this changing paradigm for learning and those who haven't quite caught on or who don't have the funds for equipment and staff development?
While there's nothing unusual about schools across the country adopting this new paradigm at different rates, schools that are left out of the loop too long will turn out students who will be at a serious disadvantage.
Helping parents to understand this shift in education might help. A professor of mine once pointed out that changing school practice, even based on the best research, can be hard because everyone has been to school and has their own mental picture of what school should be like based on their own experience. This leads some people to resist change in favor of their own model of a good school.
On the other hand, parents who are convinced of the importance of making technology and teachers trained in the use of Web 2.0 tools available to their children might be motivated to support school efforts, approve millages, do fund raisers, and get involved in making sure their students have the same advantages as those in cutting edge districts.
In any case, educating the public would make them more supportive of providing funding for local initiatives to make sure every student has the same opportunity. Schools and teachers need to get the word out to help the public understand these changes in education and to support them.

Paradigm Shift

Education is passing through a transition to a completely different way of thinking about learning and teaching. It's kind of like passing through a nebula...it takes time and happens in stages. The paradigm shift we are seeing now has been underway for some time. At first it involved embracing technology as a tool - as better equipment. But where we are headed now goes beyond using updated physical tools to teach pretty much in the same way we always have. We are entering a realm where our whole paradigm of teaching is changing.
It's like putting on those fun rainbow glasses you get at Christmas time. Kids love to see rainbows that some how change ordinary lights into something unusual (and cool). Teachers are having to shift their vision, too. As we engage technology in the classroom, we have to see the learner and the learning experience in a way that is truly different from what has been the standard. It isn't always easy to maintain this new way of seeing learning, but it's essential if we are to do right by our students.
Years ago in a 2005 issue of Wired an article called "Revenge of the Right Brain" pointed to trends that have brought us to this place. If we are to prepare the kids of the 21st century, we have to think beyond just using technology for information and emphasize developing the higher-level, creative thinking skills of an era dubbed by some as the Conceptual Age.