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My Vision for Technology -- Lynn Gagnon

My vision for technology changes with every passing month, but there are some things that remain the same. The most important thing is that when technology is integrated into a classroom, it needs to increase student learning. And the second thing is that technology will not be fully integrated until every student has a device suited to learning and provides internet access in their hands 24x7. And the third thing is that access to academic information is the most important lesson we can teach our students. Our students are immersed in a digital social environment, but we need to emphasize that the information we use in school must come from different, academic and reliable sources. Their academic life is separate from their social life, just as their professional life will be kept separate from their social life in the future. Students need to have an "academic" footprint that includes all of the accomplishments and unique ideas the student has collected over the course of his/her life during K-12 schooling. Personal responsibility for learning is a virtue that needs emphasis throughout the educational process.

I truly believe that schools are not responsible to provide access devices for students. I feel that if we allow students to bring their own devices, access to information will be greatly increased. I look around at our school district and we have "computer time" and we have SMARTboards, and we have distance learning, but the only people truly integrated are the teachers who are using computers every day to help them achieve the task of teaching. I am working very hard in my district to see that students are allowed to have devices in their hands to achieve the task of learning.

I think that about 60-80% of our students would show up at school with a very good device to be used in the classroom. About 20-40% would not. If a district is to address the needs of the 20-40%, they would be more successful than attempting to address the needs of 100% of the students in a one-to-one program. I've worked in the School Media Center and Public Libaries for years and I know how children take care of things that are on loan. We spend a great deal of money and time repairing items that have been tossed, smashed, ripped, torn, eaten, folded, flooded, and stepped on. So, when I see districts attempting to purchase one to one devices, I cringe. This is just experience talking here, and it's only my experience, so I guess I do have a tendency to think very hard about giving students anything expensive that we are responsible to fix. I do notice that their cell phones are taken care of. . .some students even upgrade them with their own money. So I believe that the crux of the matter lies in the hands of your friendly school networker and systems administrator. It's time to stop repairing and start opening up those networks. One of the major problems today in schools is that in its current state, technology is great until too many people start using it, then we run into slow connections and pretty soon, everything comes to a screeching halt.

We need policies that allow IT people to open up networks. We need networks that offer several different levels of security, so administrators can keep student records secure, while communicating with staff. We need open networks for use by students (the public library has been offering open, filtered networks for years). We need wireless systems that will handle the density of students devices without dogging it. I think this will come to pass eventually. It's not far away. We need to support newer wireless configurations, like the one presented to us recently by Xirrus (they can't bid on new school contracts because they are not "on the list" -- but watch out Cisco, it's just a matter of time!). And we need to teach academic media literacy. It's different than surfing and socializing. It's a place where ethics and rules matter. It's a place where reputation counts. It's a place where positive ideas are shared and documented research is valued.

My vision for the future is that we teach students how to act online in an academic environment and we watch them soar.