No excuses

I've just read an excellent post on the blog Dangerously Irrelevant called We can't let educators off the hook. It pulls no punches and basically says that there is simply no excuse for teachers ignoring technology today. The net affects nealy every aspect of our lives today and very few, if any, of the jobs that today's students are aiming for will not require high levels of digital literacy. Why then should schools and universities not adopt the methods of communication and collaboration that pervade the rest of society?

Of course many teachers feel daunted by technology and don't know where to start but we all felt like that in the beginnig. Today there is usually help available and the web tools of today are remarkably simple to use and require little or no technical knowledge. There's no magic solution round the corner, it's time to adapt, experiment and learn from those with experience.

"The reason many of us now ‘get it’ is because we realized that the world is changing, we recognized our responsibility to our students and schools, and we dived in and learned as we went along. Changing inertia into momentum, not waiting for someone to hand us the answer, taking responsibility ourselves rather than blaming others for our own inactivty - that’s what life-long learners do. That’s what effective educators do. That’s what we owe our children."

Talk to colleagues who are already using the net, learn from them, ask your IT people, get involved. There's more help than you can imagine, especially out there on the net. Technology can help teachers teach more effectively and reach out to new groups. It's still all about pedagogy, effective communication, collaboration and hard work (very old concepts) but with so much more potential and dimensions than the old restricted classroom model could offer.

"It’s not about our personal or professional priorities and preferences, our discomfort levels, or any of that other stuff that has to do with. It’s about our students: our children and our youth who deserve at the end of their schooling experience to be prepared for the world in which they’re going to live and work and think and play and be. That’s the obligation of each and every one of us. No educator gets to disown this."