So What?

When Charm and I went to the NYSCATE conference, we attended a workshop called The Creative Journey, which was about infusing your classroom with creativity. The workshop was run by Peter Reynolds, a children's book author. Though there were positive and negative aspects of this experience, he said something that has really stuck with me, which I think goes to the heart of 506. He said, basically, that once you have the computer, so what? Just getting a computer in your classroom isn't particularly meaningful, it's what you do with that computer that matters. I thought of this immediately when a read a recent post on Will Richardson's blog, in which he addresses the same issue:

"What difference, really, does the infusion of technology into the classroom have if the teachers who use it don’t have a context for learning with it? My guess is that most of what’s happening in schools right now is what Alan November calls “automating,” taking the stuff we used to do on paper and digitizing it in some way without any real change in the pedagogy or in the understanding of what the learning potentials are."

Looking for ways to change the pedagogy is key here. As we've heard, read, discussed over and over throughout the semester, the old paradigms of learning just aren't adequate any longer (if they ever were). It's time to find a new path for ourselves and our students. But just "digitizing" isn't a solution. Having your kids do a power-point presentation instead of a poster doesn't change anything. When we interviewed Peter Reynolds after the workshop, he said "Technology is the invitation." Technology is a tool that we can use as we try to reshape the English classroom, but its potential is limited to what we decide to do with it. The real challenge will be answering that question, now that you have the computer, just what are you going to do with it?