Saving Our Schools, One Macaroni Noodle at a Time

     In class this past Thursday, we watched a video of a young man and his proposed solution to a broken school system. His idea is to replace textbooks, copy machines, paper and pencils, etc., with iTouches. The apps already available as well as a few more geared specifically towards classrooms and teachers, he terms the iSchool. He suggests that the amount schools could save by cutting the things that could be replaced by the iSchool would save our schools. More money would be available for programs that are currently being cut and more teachers could be hired, reducing classroom size and allowing for more personal interaction. According to his math, schools are currently spending about $600/student, while an iTouch would only cost about $150/student.
     I found this a compelling argument, and his movement is gaining political support. From the technology angle, I think that incorporating things like an iTouch or iPad into everyday use by students is a great way to start making learning real for the students. Technology like that is something they're growing up on and will use in the world outside the school building. Being able to manipulate it is a useful skill.
     However, I'm always a little unconvinced when it comes to such integrated technology in younger classrooms like preschool and kindergarten. I may be a little nostalgic, but I believe kids that young should be creating things and gluing macaroni to themselves and learning to write with pencils and drawing with crayons and using blocks and other touchable, movable things to learn. I wouldn't want them doing everything on an iTouch or iPad. They need to learn to do things outside of the technology before learning how to use the technology.

Another Possible Career Plan

This week in class we had a guest speaker talk to us through an online audio connection about teaching in an online school. Her name was Beth Day, and she presented online teaching in a way I had never considered. She said her primary motivation for switching from a brick-and-mortar school to an online school was the ability to stay home with her children. By teaching online, her love for mommying her own children and her love for teaching others don't conflict. With my own heart for children, and a strong desire for some of my own one day, I took notice of this benefit of online teaching. It definitely peaked my interest-- the thought of staying home with my children but still having a career in education.
However, since I am primarily interested in teaching kindergarten, I wondered about how I could teach children so young without face-to-face interaction. Can they even navigate within the technology used for online schooling? How would arts and crafts projects be done on their own? And how could they experience the social interaction with their peers that is so crucial for development?
Concerning my technological concerns, Beth shared that young children are surprisingly adept at using computers and navigating the technology. The online school in which she teaches is K-12, and there hasn't been any major concerns or issues about the younger children using their software. Also, when asked if she would send her own children to an online or brick-and-mortar school, she had a thought-provoking response. She said she would send her older, healthy daughter to a brick-and-mortar school. However, her younger daughter was born with complications that would make it difficult for her to function normally in such a setting, and that if forced to choose in that moment, she would prefer an online education for her.
An online education as an alternative for children with special medical needs or disabilities was a possibility I had never considered. Online schools could provide a greater chance for interaction and one-on-one guidance by someone who might be more qualified than a parent, while allowing the child to stay at home where more attention can be given to their medical needs.
All of these thoughts have led me to consider teaching online as a greater possibility for me than I ever have before.

A New Call for Revolution

I was recently required to read a rather lengthy article by Sam Roberson entitled, "Defying the Default Culture and Creating a Culture of Possibility." It discusses how the school environment hasn't changed in nearly a hundred years, and the dire need for it do so as of yesterday. The global society outside of schools has changed drastically, but schools are still teaching the same things in the same ways, and students are suffering for it. Students aren't prepared with the skills they need to be effective in the world outside their school building. 

Technology has been the biggest change in our globalized, fast-paced society. Roberson asks us to consider "that the lives of students today are submersed in technology, and their use of technology configures their understanding of life and their experience of it. Consequently, new ways to make learning interactive, personalized, collaborative, creative, and innovative are needed." He advocates a change in classrooms from teacher-centered to student-centered, with students having an active role in learning about their world and ways to change and improve it, as opposed to passively receiving facts to be memorized for a test and then promptly forgotten. 

A proper use of technology in the classroom can improve student achievement in the world at large. Using new technologies as more than just new ways of fact-delivery, but as a way to "change the conceptualization of learning," will prepare students with the familiarization and tools that employers and others they will encounter in our society are looking for. Technology can make students' learning more than just relevant. It can make it real, engaging and useful to them once they graduate.