As long as I’ve been in education, and that’s been a very long time, I’ve heard educational leaders talk of reform. There was new math, schools without walls, stations, core curriculum, carpet curriculum—you name it. We talked about reform with the emergence of desktop computers in the classroom, and then with interactive whiteboards, and now with mobile digital devices. The educational potential of mobile devices and the trend for young people to attach themselves to them (although not always for what we might call educational endeavors), appears to offer a greater opportunity for us to finally make some changes. We can’t, however, see iPads and other devices as the answer unless we consider why we adhere to methods, curricula, assessments, and classroom and school organizations, which don’t work for all of our students.
Glenn Kleiman, Executive Director for Educational Innovation and Professor, NC State University College of Education offers some excellent ideas about what we need to consider in order to meet the needs of our students. His eight Essential Elements close with the reminder: “No matter how powerful our technologies become, they will never resolve the difficult, classical issues of education. . . .”
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