What did you do in school?

Posted on the K12 Online Conference site is a video presentation by Darren Kuropatwa entitled "What did you do in school today, yesterday, and 3 years ago?" If you get a chance to watch it, you certainly should. The conference talks about how students these days all have high tech "toys" but they aren't necessarily using them to record their daily learnings and educational work. Nearly all students these days have cell phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players, but most of these technological tools are used for idle and frivilous play and are banned from school settings.

This conference does an excellent job of suggesting WHY these tools should be considered educational gadgets for students to use as well as HOW to faciliate them in the classroom. Mr. Kuropatwa suggests ways in which students can use their "gadgets" to archive all aspects of their high school careers. We as teachers need to understand that these tools do not necessarily need to be "banned" from the educational setting, but instead should be used to promote learning and critical thinking. Instead of just handing these toys to kids and letting them figure out what to do with them, we should be teaching them proper ways to access and use information via these tools.

The conference really is quite interesting, and it ties together all of the topics we have talked about in our class discussions. It has great ideas for classrooms of all ages.