Techucation

I'm not at all an expert in the area of education, but it really struck me when a Ypulse reader who used to work for the Department of Education wrote in a recent email: "It surprised me that marketers had a better understanding of this generation than educators." It's an interesting statement — on the one hand, marketers are motivated by the all mighty dollars their clients pay them to know more, but on the other hand educators should be motivated by their desire to better understand this generation of students.

The former DOE employee also sent some links to what the department is doing including the NetDay Speak Up survey data (by school) — The goal was to get students and teachers to "speak up" and participate in school tech issues. He also sent the National Ed Tech Plan….I'll plug Edutopia (published by the Lucas Foundation) as a great resource in this area.

But this also made me think about a recent interview I did with a teen for the book project I'm working on where I asked her about if/how her teachers were integrating the Web into the classroom and her response was that it was mostly about warning students to be careful in using the Web as a research tool — making sure they had kosher sources, etc.

Recently I taught a blogging workshop at 826 Valencia — a non-profit that I truly love and whose programming staff is made up of more than a few teachers. One teacher who overheard me teaching the one 10-year-old who showed up said she didn't even know what blogging was and couldn't define the workshop for a parent who asked about it. But after listening to me teach, she was really blown away by its potential.

These two anecdotes and other stuff I've heard lead me to believe that a lot of teachers just don't know enough about technology and are afraid of change — just as lots of journalists attack blogging (and sometimes for good reasons), teachers are fearful of shoddy research or see the Web as making everything faster/easier and therefore not as high quality — you don't write and revise on a blog the same way you do in a pen and paper essay (but you could).

In my fantasy world one or all of the tech companies would outfit every new and older teacher with a brand new laptop full of software, bookmarked with the coolest and best educational sites and resources online and an iPod. Every teacher would attend a three day paid training where they explore these sites, build their own site, create a blog, load their favorite music on their iPod and learn to Podcast. They should create a profile on Myspace or a Live Journal and explore those worlds. They should play The Sims or Everquest. Basically they should be immersed in everything their students are with the addition of new and cutting edge sites and technology they can use in the classroom….What do you think?

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