For my first blog post, I felt it would fitting to comment on something that has gotten be thinking about the way we educate our students in public schools. I am a public school teacher in NJ and had the unique opportunity in meeting Will Richardson on my first day back from summer break. Will Richardson is a leading figure on educational technology and a proponent of changing how schools view and use technology in and out of the classroom.
Will Richardson's keynote address opened my eyes about the issues that school districts face when attempting to regulate the use of technology while attempting to enrich the minds of 21st century thinkers. Case and point my districts cell phone policy, which allows students to have and use cell phones in the building until homeroom. Once homeroom begins the cell phones must magically disappear, not to be seen again until the closing bell.
In the past I would have been one to enforce this policy with every breath of my being. However as time has gone on, I found myself losing a war with a growing technology and something that is woven into the social fabric of today's society. I began to lax my enforcement of this policy and after Will Richardson's keynote address to my district I have accepted that there is no reason for me to continue to attempt to hold back to tide of students having cell phones during school hours. After all, how is it fair to expect students to disconnect from 21st century society when being constantly being connected to 21st century society is all that they know?
