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.