newly ancient

BusinessWeek has an interesting new article about Back to School 2.0 and the new tools which are being brought into the classroom (or the bus). By using online video and podcasts to deliver educational content, the school day is effectively extended - without making more homework. While initiatives such as Ed in ‘08 call for extended school days, I feel that we should first be making better use of the time we have. Let students have iPods in the hallways - that’s an extra 10 minutes a podcast could be listened to. Give students wi-fi access - that’s extra time to get work done rather than goofing off. (Speaking of which, I am currently struggling with changing the student wi-fi policies at my new school) Or, even utilize the bus ride as an extra hour for students to learn. As for the apparently well-founded fears that about 1 in 5 children online is sexually solicited I think that those statistics really need to be checked again. After all, I am a teen and I know other teens - none of them have been sexually solicited. (Trust me, I would know since I am the local techie). In fact, I might start a Facebook poll (far more effective than some study by adults) to show how low that number really is. Alright, enough of my rambling. Just go read about School 2.0.

Schools are museums. Only, you are required to attend and it is more like a live in museum - where you must live exactly as people did in the past. In most schools, you cannot bring anything of the future into schools - iPods, cell phones, laptops, etc. As far as I know, schools are supposed to focus on preparing students for the future, not be a full out history lesson. Well, how does the confiscation of the future help to prepare students for a work place where they are guaranteed to be digitally connected?

This is not to mention the invisible firewalls created around schools. Every conceivable modern site - from GMail to YouTube to Facebook - is blocked in schools. Yet, these sites are being used to shape business and, dare I say it, politics. I would urge our next president to investigate why schools are held in a vacuum from the rest of the world. After all, the federal government requires this immense firewall if schools want to receive any federal funding.