Skip to main content

Great Success is always Predicted to Fail

How many times am I going to hear this???

"The kids will break them, lose them, and they will get stolen."
"In 2 years the tablets will be irrelevant and useless."
"The tablets will not solve our educational problems."

By the way, educational problems will never be solved.  (That should be in that quote with death and taxes.)

Is is not just human nature to resist change?  Absolutely!  But, hey, is all this negativity really necessary?   History speaks amazing success of many innovations and ideas that were doubted and predicted to fail.

What I see is a general lack of knowledge, written by a whole bunch of people that went to school, but yet, have never spent one day teaching school.  FYI:  It's real different now.

I would like to hear from an actual student;   talking about how the tablets are not going to help them, or how the tablets are useless, or how the tablets will be irrelevant in their education in 2 years, then, I think I would actually listen.  Give me a current student right now from Kindergarten to the University level that sees technology as irrelevant and useless;  Doubt you can find one.

Wake up people.  We need technology in our schools and it will be useful and relevant now as it will be 2 years from now; even more so.  This is the future; you either embrace it and support it, or you will be the one that gets left behind.

P.S.  - We passed out the tablets 2 school days ago; I have seen more introverts become more involved and active in class than I have seen in my 18 years of teaching.  
Tablet Success #1



Comments

  1. Power to the introverts! Now you're talking their language.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here, here!!!! Awesome post and spot on accurate!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 1 Training

Day 1 tablet training took place on June 21st.  I went in with very few expectations; everything was so new and unknown, I didn't know what expectations to have.  They tiered the training for beginner and advanced and I had signed up for the advanced class; not because I am an advanced user of technology, but because I find technology user friendly, in most cases, and easy to figure out with some "tinkering". My only concern at this point was keeping up with the rest of the class. Every school has been assigned what they have termed a PLEF (Personalized Learning E-something Facilitator??)  This is a person that is assigned to our school to guide us and help us through this process. Ours is fantastic and dynamic!!  And he was our instructor the first day. Day 1 was spent as it should; learning where things are on the tablet, leaning how the interactive features work, exploring applications and some functions on the tablet.  There were also a ton of Ampl...

The Dark Side... is Pretty Dark! - The Problems with ARC

Last school year, I delved deep into personalized learning with self-paced Canvas sets and standard driven maps for students.  It was a glorious time in my creative, educational pedagogy, because I found great success with intentional, meaningful, and engaging units of study. Then came ARC. The trainings I received this summer were all about the personalized component of ARC; getting kids to read on their level, making personalized goals for each student, a valid assessment that could actually tell me something about my students' reading levels.  All of which sounded reasonable and needed, and I was behind this.  We received little information about the specific content of the day by day elements and did not see any manual/lesson plans until less than a week before school started. And I am here to tell you; the "Dark Side"....... is pretty dark. The structure of each lesson follows strict direct instruction with modeling from a grade level...

Joining the Dark Side.... the ARC change of heart

It's been an interesting journey upon first hearing about ARC at the beginning of this calendar year.  Teachers throughout the county were in a twist over this new reading program that we had never heard of but were required to implement the following school year.  What was it?  Where did it come from?  Who made the decision?  Why were we being forced to accept it?    This was our county's most infamous secret.  ARC ended up being raked over the coals and harshly criticized by administrators, teachers, and community members.  And I was one of those! But I have learned a most valuable life lesson from this experience and I hope our county leaders have as well.  The problem is not the program.  After attending a few GOOD, really informational sessions about what ARC is all about, I have to say, it's actually really incredible.  I could see the vision of how this would work in my classroom, more specifically, how this progr...