I’m a member of a group of educational technology educators from across the state who have influence over the ways in which technology is used in the schools of their particular geographical areas. One of our tasks is to stay up on current technologies so that we might better lead the schools we represent. I suggested that in the coming year we focus our learning on topics like:
– Increasing our knowledge and familiarity with Linux distros (Ubuntu/Edbuntu/OLPC). Whether we feel comfortable using them in schools yet or not, we should at least try to have a working knowledge of what they look & feel like so we can be prepared for the discussion when they inevitably happen.
– Tools that utilize 3 dimensions (Motion, Blender, Sketch-up, etc). While we have been spending the past 20 years learning 2-D tools, the kids we teach are learning to think and produce their content in 3-D. We should get to know our inner Z-axis.
– Tools that assist educators in “drinking from the internet fire hose”. ( RSS aggregators, web alerts, del.icio.us, etc.) At NETA last spring Alan November said that RSS is the killer app for education in the next 10 years and I could not agree more strongly.
– We are quick to discredit students today for being “thieves and crooks” for plagiarizing and not properly citing resources, but I haven’t seen many folks who actually teach them otherwise. How about looking at tools and strategies for doing research and writing documents that are as ethically sound as they are informational? (Zotero, refBase, NeoMem, Free and open source text editors instead of word processors)
– Enterprise Content Management Systems. We don’t have less content to track every year – we have more. Is it time to start to look at tools that could effectively capture, manage, store, and deliver content of all types from sources across the state? Maybe we should look at some different solutions so that our discussion is more informed. (DocuShare, Hummingbird, Stellent, Nuxeo, Knowledge Tree, Alfresco, etc.)
What am I blatantly ignoring? Please share -we discuss this topic in person on Friday.
