Week Five of LIH (Capstone I)

I wish I had as much fun working on this course as my fifth graders are having working on the biographies. My partner and I had a big snafu for the discussions--not only did this session fall on Superbowl weekend, her home Internet was down over the weekend, and our school district won't let us access any "ning" social networks.

A lot of these digital tools and resources we're looking at would be great to use with students. But we aren't addressing the larger community and especially parental concerns. Yes we have an AUP (acceptable use policy). But I think where technology-driven educators are woefully short-sighted is in convincing the stakeholders, primarily the parents but also lawmakers insisting on these SOLs, that we need to be educating students in, on, with, and through digital tools because it IS there reality. And for those of us who educate at a Title I school, we have an even more urgent responsibility to expose students to these digital tools and resources, especially social networks, email, and online learning because they don't gain experience in these tools at home. So where is our advocacy lesson? Where is our assignment to write to our congress member and demand a re-evaluation of state standards that are content-based and look to more process-based experiences.

I suppose I'm off the topic, but since I am the media specialist and I know what I have budgetary access to and what I don't. I listen to teachers who present ideas to me and investigate what they want before considering purchase, but I also know that some resources are paid for by the district and try though I might to have some input, my opinion is not getting very far.