I just made this point in a response to one of my blog posts last week.

More people in the 20th century read Shakespeare than any ever did in the 17th or 18th or even 19th centuries combined. And why? Because of technology.

And the thing is, for me, this illuminates the value of writing. Why? Because writing forces me to think and the thought above is a thought I’d never held before. It came to me through deeply ruminating about the impact of technology on today’s kids and classrooms.

So why do I blog like a fiend, posting probably 3,000 words a week online? Because writing sharpens my thinking and while not all of my thinking is remarkable or original (trust me, I am all too aware that I often score points in the “spectacularly unimpressive” category by people who take their time to read me), it does feed my brain in a way which I do find to be of benefit.

And to poo-poo the impact of all the online writing going on with today’s students is to, imho, disregard the thinking that they are doing in this day and age.

Me, I watched about 20 zillion hours of The Flintstones, The Brady Bunch and so on when I was a kid. Goodness knows how much better off I’d have been having had the ability to interact with my favorite media the way kids do. Instead, my brain was being trained to become passive mush – while being told to shop for sugary cereals and the such.

Sure, we can idealize how much better it was before all these video games and cell phones and blah, blah came to be but the idea that I can make a reference to the voodoo doll in the hokey Brady cave, Bam-Bam and the Fonz and have virtually everyone from my generation understand the reference because of OVER-EXPOSURE to this mindless dribble (okay, The Flintstones was cool, the Fonz in this day and age would get taken out back and pummeled and the Brady family… heck, even back then we knew that this was just weird) just further cements the point that things were not better when we were kids. At best, they were even. But in truth, today’s kids have access to scope, depth, and dynamism in a way which was never afforded to us… and to think that this will not result in a BURST of elevated thinking once they hit their 40′s (my age range) strikes me as cynical and arrogantly dismissive of genuine belief that the next generation can stand on the shoulders of our generation and take humanity to a higher and “better” level.

I’ve gotten a bit of blowback from my previous post on bringing cell phones into the class in a way that somewhat caught me off guard. And when I reflect on why, I think there’s a part of me that may not have tipped my hat enough to the idea that there are going to be inevitable “issues” with the incorporation of more technology into our classrooms – but I also thought that this notion was somewhat a given, that all of us knew precisely this going into any discussion of this type of stuff.

Teachers are going to have to develop new skill sets to keep pace with the new skill sets that students are going to be developing – and needing – as literacy tools evolve, morph and grow. Will there be “rule violators” with some of this stuff? Of course. Will there be challenges? Of course? Will it be, as the techies like to say, “discomforting” for the entire institution of public education? Of course.

But a new era is upon us. Hand held technology has evolved so rapidly – and is so remarkable – and provides so many expanded tools for learning that we are going to need to start to figure out a way to start incorporating it. You can poo-poo it all you want in 2011 – and even in 2012 – and even in 2013… but today’s high school freshman will graduate from an institution that will have seen a ton of growth by 2014/2015 in this area. And by their 10th high school reunion, parts of their old school will seem unrecognizable. It’s literally an explosion ready to to happen under our classroom feet… and like it or not, it’s coming.

And why? Because there is merit to these tools being used. Yes, there will be some sorting of the wheat from the chaff but we’re still sorting that in the non-tech world of schools even after decades and decades of public debate about it. Looking to have all the answers before we start swimming in these waters is tantamount to saying we’re never going to make the leap and jump in the pool.

As every teacher who uses this stuff knows, at some point, you just have to jump in. That causes fear. That becomes personally confrontational. That taps into our shadows.

But schools – and the tools we use to teach inside of them – are changing. No one can hold back the water about to burst from this dam.

There’s a side of me that feels the reason I spent so much time blogging this past week – to start the new year – discussing the issues, challenges, opportunities, and so on, of print books versus eBooks, is because the way the issue resolves itself in mass culture will eventually drift down into the way it makes itself manifest in our classrooms.

Unfortunately, however, we’ve sort of seen this play out before when personal computers really took hold in society… and made their way into classrooms as, drumroll please, glorified typewriters.

Now, I have no idea how a migration to eReading digital texts from our current state of living in a printed text world within school might get mucked up, but I do believe that unless we set out to purposefully and mindfully professionally develop the skills of the people at the front of the rooms – so they can guide the skills of the kids sitting in the chairs – we could be facing a history repeating itself type of scenario.

Just passing out a ton of eReaders and telling the teachers, “All the content is pre-loaded… bubble tests will be in May, good luck!” seems like 1) a recipe for calamity and 2) the leading manner in which I think eBooks eventually will get rolled out en masse.

Of course the early adapters, the schools that are already using eReading devices and the such, will probably fare much better because those types of schools (i.e. early adapters) are filled with people who typically want to buy in to this change. The admins, the staff, the kids (well, the kids – I think they are ready NOW across the nation; it’s the adults who are not), somebody has taken the initiative to lead the push. This implies that they have both a comfort with the technology as well as a capacity to navigate the technology.

But what about the teachers, admins, and schools that do not? These are the ones who are going to have the purchase “made for them” and be expected to learn and adapt and migrate whether they like it or not.
Can you see the mess already?

eReading is a coming. Printed books are moving from omnipresent to a “you gotta share the space” mode and adaptation is the order of the next decade.
We’re gonna need a whole lotta teachers for the teachers to pull this all off.

So many educators at all ends of the spectrum are trippin’ out these days because of technology. Literally, people are buggin’ out everywhere.

I just heard about a district that purchased Smart Boards for every classroom in the school and MANDATED that all educators use them daily. Being that they spent so much money (and, I assume, drank the Kool-Aid on what the salesperson told them was possible with these devices) the district literally mandated their use.

And two veterans on the staff choose to retire instead of learn how to incorporate these tools into their room on a daily basis.

Does it need to come to this?

From what I was told, the two teachers that retired were both 25+ year vets who still wanted to teach for at least another 5-8 years. And, from what I was told, they were also “good” teachers. These weren’t lemons being squeezed out in a situation where the other members on the staff were thinking, “Phew! Only 24 years, 11 months and 3 weeks too late for them!”

These were, by all accords, two good teachers.

But they just didn’t “get it” when it came to SmartBoards. And worse yet, they just had no real ambition to “get it”. So the district accepted their resignations.

On one hand, as teachers we need do indeed need to continue to grow in the classroom. Both our practice and our tools must evolve as our careers go forward. Since progress doesn’t stop – and since teaching is an art no one really masters – we must be (buzzword alert!) the “lifelong learners” we all too easily tell our students they need to remember to be.

So in my opinion, these teachers could have done a bit more to remain open to the possibilities.

On the other hand, what in the world did the district think they were buying when they purchased those SmartBoards? A “good” teacher is more valuable than a good tool for teaching. Because lots of good tools exist.

But good tools don’t affect the lives of young people the way good teachers do… not even close!

And that, I am afraid, is not going to change.

Allowing this to devolve into an ultimatum feels like folly. “Either use the darn SmartBoard or tender your resignation” doesn’t seem like great school leadership to me. I mean if you are willing to kick “good” teachers to the curb in the name of touch-screen white boards, then why not buy a series of Master lessons on DVD, play them on the tv screens of your classrooms and hire a bunch of security guards to patrol the perimeter to make sure no one is talking, off task, or chewing gum while the instructional video plays.

And if kids don’t have their homework, off to the CLINK!

Plus, if you really think about it, those SmartBoards are going to be outdated before those teachers will.

What, you think that 5 years from now the current piece of “new” technology won’t look to us like a quaint cassette tape recorder?

Check out any computer from 5 years ago. It looks practically prehistoric. (That’s if it can even run the latest software in the first place, too.)

But having good teachers on staff for 5 years? Are they not a more precious resource that all else on our campuses?

In this day and age, it boggles the mind.

It’s the second to last day of school for me… and I still have things I am hoping to do. I guess I am suffering a bit from the couldda, wouldda, shouldda syndrome.

Every school year is like that I think, but this year, there are a more “wish I would have gotten a chance to do that” thoughts in my air.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

A part of it comes from technology. With so many more tools at our disposal, there are so many new ways for students to demonstrate their learning and really dive deeply into new frontiers of learning.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

On the other hand, there are a ton of great books we did not get to read. That’s always an issue for me (not reading enough). We read all the time and yet, there is so much more I really hoped to tackle.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

My students wrote, too. Wrote and wrote and wrote. And yet, did they write enough? One more high quality piece really might have been the icing on the classroom cake.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

Did I do enough prep for the bubble tests? Did I make sure to administer enough preparatory bubbles so that when the real bubbles came,my students had pre-bubbled enough so that they were ready to really rock the meaningful bubbles.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

NOT!

As a professional, these questions also eat at me a bit. Was I generous enough with my peers? Giving enough to my school? Did I reach out enough to the parents?

Oh, what I couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

Looking back, I did a heck of a lot this year. And yet, much like most coaches will reflect upon their seasons and often remember the losses much more than the victories, so too do I see more of the couldda, wouldda, shoulddas than the “signed, sealed and delivered” aspects.

Is it just the nature of this time of year to realize, “Oh, what more there might have been?”

The past few days I have been riding the “Schools must go high tech!” horse as if I am some kind of tech geek.

I am not. Yes, I own an iPad and I blog and I have a cool website for all of my books, free stuff, and so on, but really, I don’t view myself as cutting edge.

I view myself as just doing the bare minimum of what I need to do in order to keep pace so that I can continue to professionally evolve and remain critically responsive to the aims I hold for my career.

Matter of fact, I still don’t know how to work all the functions on my phone, my camera or even my laptop.

I’ve been using Microsoft Word for what, 20 years now? I still don’t really know how to do about a million things in that program.

Truly, the capacities of these machines boggle me. I just kind of know what I know and seek to stay comfy in that realm.

Essentially, I don’t prosper; I survive.

However, I am perpetually feeling forced to either evolve or be left behind. Trust me, a big part of me is WAY more conformable working at a whiteboard with novels using oration and paper and pen to navigate my school year. (Bubble tests and scantrons… forget it!)

Yet, I also know that literacy has become so diverse and there are so many genuinely legit projects to bring into my classroom which just rock the house and demonstrate aptitudes which allow me to meet my goals in so many ways that I believe in my heart that if I do not better embrace technology in the classroom I am doing a disservice to my students. (The degree of this slight is up for debate… but to simply not use any tech at all feels to me as if the kids are being short-changed – especially because the only real reason I would not bring some tech at some point into my classroom projects is my own inability to work in this realm. It’s never the students that inhibit me from bringing tech in the classroom… it’s me! My own inability prevents kids from using their abilities. That’s a thought worth taking note of for, does it not, ring true, for many, may teachers? Why are we so afraid to admit our shortcomings and also say, “Hey, I need help!”?)

Matter of fact, I think a driving force in me buying an iPad was a feeling of being left behind which is ironic because, when I look at public education on the whole, people must think I am at the far end of the technological competency curve.

That is scary because in many ways I am an outright oaf with tech tools!

It just goes to show how far behind our schools are. I guess the old saying is true: In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

Tech has a definite place in the 2010 classroom. It’s not the end-all, be-all and it isn’t the panacean answer that people would want you to believe (probably because they are trying to sell you something when they say it)… but technology can help us evolve.

A lot.

And when you look at how much room for improvement there is in public education today, it’d be great to see the common core standards tethered to the idea of project-based learning as opposed to it being tethered to, what we all fear will be, standardized bubble tests.

No, I am not a tech geek. And I’d be laughed out of one of those tech conferences if ever I was forced to show how little I actually do know.

But I understand the idea that when we preach “you must be a lifelong learner” in our schools, the first person that must embody this idea is me, the classroom educator.

I really like the Pew Center. They do good stuff. But don’t ya think they ought to change their name? I mean they are just wide open to criticism.

The Pew Center? Their research stinks!

And when I type the word “millennials” into my computer, the little red “speck check” error sign lights up underneath the word.

It makes me think, “When is technology going to catch up with technology?”

Alas, it’s now March. That means we are gonna give a lot of little bubble tests between now and the start of summer.

These, lest we forget, are the bubbles that will shape our future! If my school does good bubbles, we will move off the bubble of being taken over by the state for having low bubbles. If my school does bad bubbles, the bubbly will be popped by all the “consultants” who will get to swoop in with their promises of turning water into wine — getting a fat (dare I say bulbous) paycheck for their efforts.

So remember, Millennials, be good bubblers these next few months! A lot of Pew from ETS is riding on it

There’s a part of me that feels as if the discussion I raised the other day about how using technology in way that simply adds up to “digitalizing worksheets” devolved to a place where I feel I wasn’t quite paying heed to the idea that I really do recognize the potential — if not obvious — merits of technology. I have seen Smartboards, airliners, wikis, webquests, nings and the such used in a manner that absolutely legitimizes the credibility of the argument for 21rst century skills in the classroom… and I am a fan.

I’m sold!

However, everything I’ve seen that I greatly admire has a foundation in real human thought and deep student thinking.

Technology allows students to probe deeper and wider with more expediency and more efficiency (to name but a few of the benefits). Wielded properly, the case for utilizing 21rst century technology tools is virtually inarguable. The stuff rocks.

However… well, the however category might be the biggest technology hurdle out there — and the one that so few are addressing by name. Bigger than the expenditure, the PD needed, the retrofitting of all our current institutions and the investment we are going to need to make on a zillion other fronts is the “However category”.

The “However” category relates to fundamentally asking ourselves, “What is the goal of classroom education?” If technology is not meta-cognitively implemented with an eye on reflectively asking ourselves “what is the learning goal that this tool better empowers me to achieve” then we will quickly find ourselves losing the forest for the trees.

After all, if we do not ask the right questions there is a very low likelihood that we are going to stumble into the right answers.

I know the past few years of NCLB has seen an almost manic mandate to have teachers — especially new teachers — put the day’s “academic objective on the board at the front of the room”. (As if learning is a widget to be easily stamped; today we will be persuasive argument writers, tomorrow precise gerund users, Thursday will see us read Langston Hughes for subtext and Friday will see us master split infinitives. Oh, the buffoonery.)

However, with technology, having a clear, well thought-out student learning objective really is the compass by which one can navigate the use of technology. Now, I don’t want to double dip and plagiarize from myself (can one even be guilty of this?) because I talk address this issue in depth in my Scholastic book Teaching Teens and Reaping Results in Wi-Fi, Hip-Hop, Where Has All the Sanity Gone World, yet, the fact is, when you bring project-based learning into the classroom, you need to know what intellectual goal you are pursuing before you even begin — and you better tenaciously pursue that clear and focused aim because all the bells and whistles available in tech today are like a Siren Temptress of the Sea which can easily lead a teachers onto the calamitous rocks of classroom lesson implosion.

Tech needs a litmus test to justify its incorporation into a classroom. Know your objective and then, think like Einstein who often said, “Simplify, simplify simplify.”

If the tech shoe doesn’t fit, why force it?