Thanks for sharing the McFarlane article. Although I disagree with many of her conclusions, it was definitely nourishing food for thought. More importantly, I now have two more sites to look at later…the distracted teens article and the iremix.org site she mentions at the end of the article.

Ouch. I guess that would be important to share, eh? I don’t so much disagree, as I am not fortunate to teach in a true 1-1 situation (I have 22 computers in my English classroom), as much as I kind of distrust some of her conclusions.

It seems to me that most of her quabbles with district training being too technology centered would lie in it being the first year of implementation. While I believe that the discussions they were no longer having are indeed important (changing population, relevancy of information/skills, etc.), they are not discussions that I have ever heard in my district, so I kind of question whether they take place in any district. I guess I’m coming from a place where PD sessions are generally a complete waste and salivating over being able to discuss technology as teaching and productivity tool, even if the sessions were too teacher centered.

In regards to the “Disconnecting” section, I think that time spent updating your website to help remove the walls of your classroom, and time spent seeking better multimodal resources to help students access the lesson on a variety of levels is time worth spent. Regarding to the changes in communication (increase in reading), I know how solitary life is in a high school, so increased opportunities for discussions could a school more efficient and effective.

I also understand the Big Brother connection, but I’ve found that if you monitor kids on the computer a bit, let your presence be known, establish your expectations, and don’t take an ultraconservative stance on the perceived dangers of the internet, then most of those problems become minimal. If discussion or a presentation or minilesson is happening…laptop lids are closed and it becomes “hot potato” time.

It seems like McFarlane is taking a good stance regarding her classroom. If you find your students are assaulted by ubiquitous advertising, address it, teach a bit, and discuss it in class. If you find your students are valuing locating information over synthesizing meaningful things out of that information, then redesign the assignments.

Thanks for calling me out to be more specific.

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