The grants are needs/wants based, rather than a fixed amount. In my head, I always imagined an amount around $2500 (max.) to keep the projects relatively small and manageable as well as to make the teachers think creatively about what is really necessary.

And I agree that there should be a more intertwined relationship between educational technology folks and curriculum folks. I was given a new supervisor this year; instead of reporting the MSHS Principal I now report directly to the Technology Director. While this makes sense in a lot of ways, I also lobbied that I should report to the Curriculum Director instead, especially if my remit as tech facilitator is to focus on pedagogy and student learning.

P.S. – Steal away. Just don’t forget to attribute!

Congrats on the new position! Sounds like you’re walking into a firestorm with the iPad rollout, though. That’ll keep you on your toes for the first few months!

I think “problem for every solution” is the perfect way to describe the attitude of some. Hopefully we can alleviate some of that with more ownership of the process by teachers. Like I said, this is only the first year and since I’m leaving in June I’m a bit sad that I won’t get to see how it plays out first hand. Hopefully some of the reports will be made public as a model for other schools to adapt.

I may steal your idea!

Right on. The messiness of collaboration is where the wisdom will grow. Education is as much about the social interaction of people working together as it is about obtaining knowledge. Dewey and Vygosky pointed this out long. Their ideas about collaborative communities seem to be making a resurgence in the digital age.

Your link to Punya Mishra surprised me. I had him for a course called Learning Technology Through Design during my masters degree work through Michigan State. By far the most inspiring professor and course in the program.

But I’m not sure that education will go so willingly or as quickly as people might hope. Whilst I have several reasons why, let’s take an equally dark approach and focus on power.

Education especially in the USA has become a means to deny social mobility and to retain power and wealth amongst those who currently hold it. Although knowledge may be liberated in that anyone can access it, it is also being increasingly controlled, in that knowledge and skills are worth more depending on the source that validates them. For example a student with a degree from Harvard, Stanford or Brown will be granted better opportunities, jobs, and wages than a student with an identical set of knowledge and skills from Nyack College, Bellevue University or Great Basin College. How do you get a degree from Harvard, Stanford or Brown? You pay large amounts of money for it. Not just for college tuition but also for the tuition of the private prep schools that give you the best chance of attending one of these universities as well as paying for all the extra-curricular activities that are needed to round out your college application.

Technology may change learning but until we change the manner within which society validates learning then education will still thrive. Just think of your own reaction to the Dan Brown video. Dan appears to be a motivated, intelligent young go-getter that you would like to employ or introduce to your daughter; that is until the end of the video when he declares that he has dropped out of college. Now he suddenly seems bitter and crazy. Not that this is your fault or even true but rather this is how society has taught us to validate, and measure the worth of an individual’s education and thus their worth.

That said, while those teachers may continue to be effective by previous measures (and may continue to prepare their students for university entrance requirements), I don’t think they are truly providing relevant and engaging learning experiences. Until school’s change what they consider to be effective to include this third area of knowledge, teachers in general are unlikely to change. Once this shift occurs, though, it’s nice to think that we will (hopefully) be well ahead of the game!