New Tech Comes To Education … Slowly, But Surely 1


I’ll be honest up front — this won’t be an overly long post. For one, I’m not sitting at my desk/keyboard in my comfy office chair. For two, I’m writing this post on my iPhone, via the oh-so-wonderful WordPress app [get it], which let’s you do such magic. And for three, you may infer from the timestamp on this post and from the subsequent (yet to be written) paragraph What I Should Be Doing Now — instead of this. [For another reference to What I Should Be Doing — check out Should Be Sleeping ]

Google Doc on iPhone

Rather than go off on a tangent about a recent conversation concerning teenagers sleeping with their cell phones, I’m simply going to state that I decided to undertake a bit of bedtime reading this evening (morning) before firing up aSleep [get it] and heading off to Dreamland. And given that my grade partner and I are planning on meeting tomorrow to discuss the essays which our respective classes of grade 7s are currently working on, I figured I’d take a look at some of the work that my students shared with me earlier today (yesterday). And so I simply fired up Safari on my iPhone, logged into my class’ GoogleDocs site, and started reading. Shared with me, you see, not by printing out a piece of paper which I would have had to have carried home and had sitting here within reach, but rather shared with me electronically. And, in a number of instances, shared with me electronically from the students’ homes, after school, as they each completed working on their writing according to their own timeline!

Now I realize, for some, this won’t come as a grand revelation. As previously discussed, Yes, The Future IS Here, It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed. But, for all my years of forays into the intersection of technology and education, I’m still finding the combined capabilities of these converged/juxtaposed technologies to be all quite magical. Adding to the realization that I can read my students from-their-home submitted work from-my-home on my phone, came the complementary acknowledgment that I could also blog about it, including an image of a doc (note, too, that I have removed the student name — on the iPhone — using a simple iPhone app called iRetouch [get it]) without leaving the extreme comfort of my current reading location/posture.

Providing feedback on the writing will need to wait for morning, when I can access the full editing capabilities of the full Browser interface. But the reality is that New Tech IS coming to education — and that is a good thing. Granted, at this point, it’s my personal iPhone and the setup-by-me Google Apps site that’s bringing this future a bit closer. But my principal is supportive of this direction, and is actively working to get us a half-dozen Netbooks to further allow our students to collaborate in new ways. So the Slowly, But Surely is happening. And other pieces will fall (or be contrived to fall) into place.

What does it take to help these changes come about? Some research. Keeping an ear to the ground. Trying to see new evolutions and how they might help learners (and educators) go about the wonder of learning in better ways. Finding support. Collaborating. Championing innovation. Persevering. Not settling for the Status Quo. Pushing the Envelope. Reflective Practice. Beginner’s Eyes. Yada Yada Yada.

[Appended: Being Willing To Try. Being Willing To Do. (Yoda Yoda Yoda)]

I’m conscious that I would prefer to have some inline hyperlinks up above for a couple things, and that I’ll place them below for expediency, along with the pic (auto appended by the WordPress app). I’d also likely apply a but of text formatting, were I writing this full-bore at my desk. But it’s time to launch aSleep. Good night.     NOTE: Dec. 16th, 2009.  This post was enhanced (links added, bit of text formatting) via desktop/keyboard.

iRetouch app

aSleep app


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One thought on “New Tech Comes To Education … Slowly, But Surely

  • Adam Childs

    What a fantastic post! As a teacher in training this type of optimism and excitement is so encouraging to me! I love the idea of using gDocs in the classroom! What a wonderful way to integrate what is so natural to 21st century students! It just makes sense in the connected world that we live in. I have to say I am officially inspired!
    ~Adam