ProfessorTOSA Blog

It is Getting close to the holidays, and besides a freak flu that put me out for a few days (I only missed one day of work), all is blissful.  Really, what’s better than seeing your family prepare for the holidays?  Santa, reindeer food, and all that mystery and gift giving is the ultimate, and it’s one of my favorite memories from days past to pass to my daughters.   Funny how everything else about Christmas has changed — shopping online, registries, digital holiday cards ordered from home, stamps online, store sales coupons announced and then printed from email.  Trees, fairytales, and love are the same and that’s about all.

My one reader, Mr. Stark, surely has seen that my general tone throughout recent posts has turned to a more critical one.  Lately I’ve been writing less about tools and apps and favoring the institutional reform stance of a man who is ready for change.  Globally we’re ready, and nationally we’ll soon be far behind if we don’t allow our system of education to meet the demands of our students’ futures rather than continually pump money into programs that were designed to meet the needs of another era.  This era, as the panel, Tough Choices or Tough Times describes, is “…an era in which most workers needed only a rudimentary education.” The panel goes on to explain, “It is not possible to get where we have to go by patching that system.  There is not enough money available at any level of our intergovernmental system to fix this problem by spending more on the system we have.  We can get where we must go only by changing the system itself.” Read this panel’s findings if you have the interest.

I recently finished the book, Transforming Schools with Technology, by Andrew A. Zucker. The book was given to me by a mentor of mine and given at a very appropriate time in my career.  The book discusses how the smart use of technology can help our educational goals and, most pertinent to my current thoughts, how educational reform is hindered by halfhearted attempts with technology integration.  One of my favorite quotes from Zucker’s book is from Harvard professor Chris Dede.  Dede says, “The fundamental barriers to employing new technologies effectively for learning are not technical or economic, but psychological, organizational, political, and cultural.” Not economic.  I believe this.  I believe that if our educational leaders saw that technology was truly going to be a vital part of our students’ careers and an integral part of our National longevity, and ignored the possible political and cultural repercussions, then there would be enough money, there would be a plan for change and technology’s integration would not be a choice, but the vehicle for the change we need.

Of course I don’t think this is easy, and I am blatantly ignoring the agreement of a few thousand other elements in our system of education.  In truth, while I believe that my district is taking a very progressive stance on this topic and my superintendent and school board are the envy of all districts I’ve visited, but it’s the cultural conversation that Dede describes that has us the most restrained and the most fearful, and ultimately this decision for change needs to come from more powerful individuals than local administration.  And, lastly, I admit that change at this level is difficult, but in order for our Nation to remain successful while so many other countries are making 21st century shifts, we must have these conversations with our communities.  We need a vision and action steps to achieve that goal and we need to do this soon because everything is changing … even the holidays.