eSchool News has posted what is, in my view, an extremely important article on how the United States is lagging behind on support for integrating technology into education. The UK, for example, is spending literally billions of dollars tearing down aging schools and rebuilding them wired from the ground up. They are spending billions of dollars more on training teachers how to use the technology. Other countries are making similar investments. (Mexico and Australia are both cited as examples in the article.) Meanwhile, the U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is out there saying that the push for funding new technology in the classrooms is “complete” and recommending cuts in the Federal budget for such initiatives.
I believe that those of us who consider ourselves to be “edubloggers” have a moral obligation to speak out, organize, and mobilize on these issues. Beyond simply talking among ourselves about what ought to be done, we should be reaching out to make it happen. We should be encouraging our fellow citizens in our respective countries–and around the world–to insist that our govenments fund infrastructure, teacher training, content development, and R&D for educational technology in a systematic way. If we really believe that what we do matters, then let’s make sure that it really does matter.
I will be posting about specific things that can be done in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, I would love to hear suggestions from my many fine colleagues in the edublogosphere–both writers and readers. What can we do today to raise public awareness and get legislative action?
If the UK really is spending all these billions on wired new schools and technology training for teachers, I have yet to see the evidence of it! Most of my teacher friends and acquaintances are IT-terrified. I am aware of some of the learning materials that are being produced (in fact, members of my team have been involved in producing some of them) but very little effort appears to be made to get these materials to the teachers.
I did a little straw poll among my acquaintance on a very sophisticated package designed to raise teacher awareness of the potential for ICT in teaching and learning across the curriculum. None of them had ever heard of it.
I think we’re back to “they don’t know what they doon’t know”, so how do they know what to pursue/request?
That’s a really good question. Maybe we need to try to build a grassroots, teacher-to-teacher basic education program, showing them what they could have and what they should be demanding in terms of training and resources. The unions could be helpful in this regard.
I don’t know. I’m open to suggestions.
I think the LEA consultants are key. These people seem to have more direct contact with the teachers than anyone else. But even they seem to function on the old 80/20 basis with the schools in their care. The unions may be an option, But Ewan MacIntosh’s experience with one of the larger unions doesn’t engender much optimism. See: http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2006/05/why_i_am_leavin.html
Setting up something that’s teacher to teacher also seems like a good approach(and a colleague and I dipped a toe in this water, too), but once again, it’s a matter of drawing teachers’ attention to the existence of the site.