Though no formal policy exists, teachers there generally apply the same rules that they have for computers: no exchange of information between devices, and no personal e-mail or chatting unless it's part of a class exercise.They've got it all wrong: Educational and work structures--social life in general--are changing. Systems are fragmenting, dispersing, and recombining. The development of ubiquitous communication networks provides a whole new model for our culture(s). If we fail to respond to those changes in positive ways, we're toast.When East Dubuque does consider a PDA policy, Ambrosia said he'll want to ban the combination cell phone-PDA models.
"It shouldn't be so easy to have all these other functions at their fingertips," he said. "It's hard enough to keep a young teenager on task."
Face it: Schools and workplaces can't control the devices by banning them. Educational and working structures need to take advantage of these changes. More importantly, they have to recognize that old forms of learning and working--long, sustained, concentration on a single topic to the exclusion of all else--no longer function effectively.
Current models of learning and working are broken. There's no reason to defend them from disruptive technologies. In fact, those technologies are the new learning and work structures and processes.
[via Educational Technology Weblog]
Posted by johndan at October 23, 2003 08:58 AM
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