A New Pedagogy

Will Richardson’s blog from Sept 2, titled Opening Days, was quite thought provoking. In it he states that while schools are talking more about technology, it is mostly talk about how to add technology to classrooms instead of conversation about changing education. There is so much more to be done with computers than just word processing, creating power points and doing minimal research, but most school districts are not using technology for much more than these things. It is helpful as a teacher to be able to access the web to find lessons on subjects we’re teaching, but how do we make it a common medium, as common as a textbook, paper and pencil? What would it take to really move our educational system into the 21^st century? Many of these questions seem to be answered in his previous blogs about school districts being monetarily rewarded for maintaining the status quo, and top level administrators who are woefully out of touch with the actual happenings of a classroom, as evidenced in his blog Lawsuits? What Lawsuits?

Let’s face it, money, or the lack thereof, drives the realities of education. We are feeling the squeeze right now, and school districts are no different. How can we improve technology in the classrooms, or even develop a new philosophy of educational technology when we can’t even pay the teachers who are currently standing in the classrooms? How can we supply schools with computer labs, let alone students with laptops, when we can’t even get enough books for students?

I appreciate Richardson’s push to get educators to think about a new pedagogy and his desires for us to ask ourselves the tough questions about education. Are we helping students create? Are we willing to create with them? What are we afraid of? But when I stand in my own classroom and read student writing I wonder if I really need students to be more technologically savvy, or do I really need them to work at becoming more literate? What is the best way to achieve this? Are these ideas mutually exclusive? Writing can only be improved by writing more, whether it’s done with a pencil and paper or keyboard and monitor. Reading can only be improved by reading, so in these instances more technology does not necessarily help. What would be powerful would be letting students converse with their peers across the world about the importance of education, and allow them to dialogue about the realities of their worlds and how they are going to bridge these gaps when they are adults and leading these causes…in just a few years.