The secret to introducting technology into the classroom is doing it intelligently. Most schools need to radically change the way they teach. Technology doesn’t do that by itself. To quote Chris Dede, Harvard Graduate School of Education, author of Digital Teaching Platforms: “If you are introducing a new device into the classroom, but using it to teach the same way as before, you are putting old wine into new bottles.” In other words, if the bulk of the classroom technology is basically just a new way of giving lectures and doing worksheets using technology, you haven’t enriched the classroom or helped the students make learning more relevant and powerful. It’s just a bunch of bells and whistles. We are fotunate to have 20 bright, new, shiny Macbooks for students to use, but their use will be embedded into research, project work, and other purposes that further enhance the learning experience for students.
