This was education a long time ago. But it still seems like this today it seems. Education a long time ago involved monotonous text books, and black boards chalked with powder. But this is the 21st century, why does it still feel the same, or similar?
Don’t get me wrong, education has come a very long way. Teachers are trying the best to incorporate multimedia and videos into their lesson plans, and with much success. I find classes more interesting that way, but it still seems like there is a lot more that could be done. The problem is that schools aren’t adjusting as a whole to what we the students need, and what’s going on NOW.
They seem to be stuck in the past, but galloping into the future, with fragmented “Technology plans” that use 2005′s technology in 2008. It’s like teaching with a textbook from the 50′s trying to make a video from that for 2008 but using current events from 2005. Confusing analogy, isn’t it? But thats what it seems like schools are doing.
They need to recognize that this a changing world, and that they need to change with the world and keep up with the speed. If social networking is heating up, why not create a social network for the school, and upload videos, pictures, and make forums for the classes? It’s really not that hard to do with Ning. Budget cuts are no excuse, since a lot of things they could do on the Internet are relatively cheap with a good server or web host.
To really take school into the 21st century I think they should at least do:
Redo their Website
- Make it more social, add profiles
- Add forums
- Add minisites for classes
- Upload videos and write news about school events
- Ditch using Adobe PDF to look at all the news – pathetic and it slows down the computer. annoying!
Create a tech plan for the entire school. Stop looking at just the grade book program, look at the whole picture. Yearbook, EMail for teachers, (email for students?), the computer needs of the newspaper, the science room, storing videos on the network so teachers aren’t scrambling finding DVD’s everywhere.
Thats all I have to say for now. This post may have been a little complicated, but just do some Googling I promise you’ll learn a lot.
