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absolute centrality of digital culture to their students’ lives

thinking skills that today’s workers need?

The most powerful technology in the classroom was, is, and always will be a classroom teacher.

Back in 1999, when there were still a few people muttering that the Internet was “just a fad”, the science fiction writer and visionary Douglas Adams wrote an article expressing amusement at the way the mainstream media considered the Internet something odd, and slightly sinister: …you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this: 1) Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal; 2) Anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it; 3) Anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really. (Adams, 1999)

they are understanding a complex text and making sense of it within the context of their own lives.   No parent wants more, no teacher does, than for kids to be able to not just "read" Shakespeare but to understand why his work still speaks urgently to the present, why it is worth taking the time to read all that odd English from another time

We are not responsible as educators unless we are teaching not just with technology but through it, about it, because of it.   We need to make kids understand its power, its potential, its dangers, its use.  That isn't just an investment worth making but one that it would be irresponsible to avoid.