I find it essential to continually network with teachers by making myself aware of what units they have coming up and ensuring that I may get in at the unit planning level, having a say in infusing technology and information literacy skills at the backward design discussion level and bringing tools and skills that will help them in planning.

really resonates with me. My most successful experiences as a technology coach have been when I’m regularly involved in planning at the department level, and at the unit level. This way the application of technology in the classroom can be seamlessly integrated with the more traditional curricular goals.

As you have pointed out, technology can be is a new way of doing the same old thing- but using nifty tech tools. In addition, some use the kids”wow” and “oh cool’ statements as the driving force behind why we use technology – a form of entertainment to make school fun.

Are these two two situations ok?
I believe, it is important to recognize how different our learners are than 10 years previous. The points on this video http://youtu.be/3NzQqPH3JRw are crucial to the way kids are moving. They have access to so much information on an hourly basis. This is a key change to how teachers should educate. We need to help kids look critically at the information they are bombarded with, and identify what is valid. We need to tech them how to be digital citizens. Part of doing this is to stick with what we think are important things for them to know ie. “the same old stuff”

I teach 7th grade; my kids also made a video based on a book they read. The amount of ways that the kids could have made their video was incredible. I think the kids learned more about making a movie then they necessarily did about how to write a book review, and yes there was a definite wow factor to making a video vs. writing a book review. But the information is similar, just not the format. Is that ok?

Part of me would say yes, but also recognize that traditionally is is important for kids to write a book review.

Looking past the 21st century will it be ok if kids do not know how to write a book review?

Or the bigger question is what will be important for kids to know how to do?

Your right- it is a paradigm shift that is occurring before our eyes! We are educating kids for a world that really we have no idea what it is about or how it is going to unfold.

I wonder if our teachers ever thought that about the 20th century?

The fast passed at which the internet has developed educational games and sites for students to use is amazing. Often kids are more familiar with how to solve technology problems than teachers.

One of the goals I have set for myself is to try to avoid doing old things, in a new way by using technology to each in new ways.