Next

I've been catching up on some of the blogs I follow and I keep thinking about what comes next. What's the next thing to do to capture our techy kids and make them effective users of technology. I watch them struggle with finding good information that fits their needs. Today, it was a student who needed an image of a one-year old baby and claimed she couldn't find one. I asked a few key questions, typed the search term into google images and voila, found one she could use for her collage. They struggle with knowing the technology but not paying attention to the details. A young man came in to print a file from his CD. He couldn't find it and thought it was a Vista issue with our older computers. I've downloaded the file converter to my circulation desk workstation, so I can print those files for our students. (Can't do it on the student workstations because of the Deep Freeze software). When I put the CD in there was no file there. I asked a few key questions and he didn't tell the computer to write the files to the CD.

Yes, they have grown up with these machines in their lives, but do they really know how to use them well? As educators, what should we be doing to help them use the technology wisely and well? How do we accomplish this with our limited technology that is often out dated and doesn't match what students have at home. Yet, we still have those who don't have any access at home.

The never-ending conundrum....