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media type="custom" key="8026200" Technology Autobiography

My first exposures to computers where in my high school years. I took a class where we wrote simple programs using 1s and 0s. I remember my mom using a computer at the college where she taught to write her doctoral dissertation. She had a "cheat sheet" with all the function keys and their uses. I took a computer class in college and rarely went to the computer lab where they had computers that students could use. I used a typewriter to write my papers. It had enough memory to store a few lines, which were correctable before they printed. While I was teaching at JCPS, we had computer labs, which I used when my students needed to type their portfolio pieces. Just a few years before I went on child-rearing leave each teacher got her own computer in her classroom! They were very slow. I would turn it on, write up the sponge activity for the next day, log on, correct some papers,.... I didn't have enough free time to use it much. It was mostly used for email and word processing. My husband and I got our first computer as a cast-off given to us as my father-in-law got a faster one. It was nice for me to keep in touch with friends via email while I was on bed rest during a pregnancy and during the sleep-deprived months that followed. Being on bed rest also forced me to register for my shower gifts online. As the years have passed, I have become more dependent on the computer for email, shopping, information, and editing pictures.

I was very unimpressed with my own experience using computers in the classroom as referenced above. I'm glad that my sons are being taught basic keyboarding skills beginning in kindergarten. It was impossible for me to teaching keyboarding and get all the portfolio pieces finished in my middle school Language Arts classes. Think that teachers are presented with amazing resources now! I was observing an English as a Second Language class at the JCPS Newcomer Center in December. Smartboards and the camera/projectors make teaching easier. The speed of the internet and computers made it possible for the teacher I was observing to look up a historical fact that came up in discussion and immediately share it with the class. I like having the internet at home when my boys ask me questions I've never thought about before. ("How do flies stick to the ceiling when they're hanging upside down?") One of my teacher friends has her Spanish students skyping back and forth with their sister class in South America. The possibilities are exciting! In some aspects, everything's changing, but some things are the same. Technology provides tools that teachers and students can use. They're not an end, but a means to an end.

media type="custom" key="8026292" I strongly agree with Sir Ken Robinson's point that imagination is a "unique capacity" that no other species has. What a treasure, the ability to be innovative! I also agree that because of this truth, the driving force of education should be the personhood of each student rather than the current (and fluctuating) needs of the country at large. As a mother, I consider it one of my jobs to keep my eyes open to the talents and abilities that I see in my sons and encourage them to nurture and develop them. I agree that "people do best when they're in their element" and that the use of our unique gifts for the good of others (and I would add, to the credit of the One who gave them to us) is the most fulfilling and satisfying life a person can have. I agree with Sir Robinson's accusation of "intellectual apartheid". As a teacher, I have been extremely frustrated at the lack of resources for students who are mechanically gifted, for example, but not as gifted in the most valued academic skills.

The application of these truths is "the rub". In this particular presentation Sir Robinson deals with theory, not application. I would be interested in his realistic ideas about public school structure. I am all for grouping by ablility, which is very out-of-fashion, I know, but if kids could progress to new information as soon as they mastered their current level, motivation and interest would increase. They might also have more time to pursue subjects currently considered less valuable. Really, the setting where I see Sir Ken's ideas being applied right now is homeschooling. Parents have the opportunity to structure their child's education based on their child. What are his interests, his gifts, his abliities? Students can progress as quickly as they are able and aren't shamed if they need to "camp out" on a skill for a longer period of time than a "production line" education would allow. Students can learn basic skills such as reading, writing, and mathmatics as they relate to their own interests. Parents are able and motivated to study their own children and adjust their education based on what they discover. As students grow, they can make more of these educational choices themselves. Regardless of how parents choose to educate their children, I strongly believe that education is the parents' job. They are the ones who know their children best and have the responsibility to choose educational settings that fit their children well.

I don't share Sir Ken's worldview. I don't think all people are mainly good, and that we only make bad decisions because of our poor conditions. I wonder if the escalating suicide rate since the 1960s is a result of elevating self-focused, immediate gratification over God-focused, delayed gratification. I don't think that we are a "cosmic accident" on a "small, unimportant planet" or that we are "born of risen apes".

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