I did a survey and presentation on this topic a few years ago. I
think the NAIS took my handout as a document download at their site.
In response to your questions, I think a five to ten year view is that
it will become clearer that schools are all about communications,
personal relationships, research and presentation. For a while, it
appeared that technology could "create unneeded layers" between
faculty and students. It also appeared that "technology would damage
important skills" such as students being able to receive, keep and use
a syllabus on paper and being able to write down homework assignments
from the chalk or whiteboard onto paper.
Obviously, being "paper trained" was seen as more important than
"using the web," but now those attitudes have reversed. As our
students are more mobile and their schedules more dynamic than fixed,
technology helps ensure clarity of expectations and asynchronous
communications outside of classroom meetings. Content delivery that
had to occur during class time can now be moved to a greater extent to
homework, as teachers use online sites to basically build their own
"text books" of information for students to access and use and
collaborate around.
In the 5 to 20 year future, the relationship between student and
teacher and students to students will continue to be the key factor in
a strong school, but technology is going to rotate round that
relationship and create new opportunities and streams for research,
process, collaboration and presentation. It may be invisible a lot
of time, but that's fine.
I rather like this future, but it does cause a Tech Department to
change its focus. It's possible that the real mission critical uses
of technology may occur entirely outside of the classroom, and maybe
even the school. In fact, technology may enable the classroom
experience to grow in value and importance, even though less
technology is used for that learning experience than school work done
outside of the classroom.
(Not to say that cool technology won't be used in the classroom,
ranging from hand-helds to very-high end rendering stations. There
will always be routine and exceptional classroom technology, but it
may not be the most important element in the bigger picture of
things.)
Thanks!
Jim Heynderickx
Director of Technology
American School in London
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Steve Taffee
<Steve_Taffee@castilleja.org> wrote:
> Hello everyone -
>
> Readers of this listserv are certainly aware of all of the promise - and hype - about 21st century teaching and learning, and especially the important role that technology will play in it.
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