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New Post: Confessions of a Techno-Luddite - by John T. Spencer - Final Reflection on the Living Facebook Experiment ... http://ow.ly/1dlRjE What if I told people in person that I like what they say? What if I took physical pictures and sent hand-written notes people? What if I created my own Suburban Farmville? What if I lived an offline version of my online social media experience?

This one is an oldie but a goodie. I use it whenever I work a new group of learners or learners that are new to educational technology. It's an easy read and can be modified to reflect the rapid changes in technology.

Yes, I agree with much of the article and the skills mentioned, but at first glance, it's quite daunting. You're talking about skills that, for the average educator, takes years to acquire and with which to become comfortable. That is something we ,as integration specialists,s need to keep in mind.

Absolutely Sui! I think TISs face the same challenge as classroom teachers. How do we hook them? For people like you and I it's an intrinsic motivation to grow our knowledge base and fine tune our craft. Once a teacher told me, "there are three kinds of teachers, those that were born to do it, those that can be taught to do it and those that will never get it." I want to believe that the overwhelming majority of teachers fall into that second category. So, back to how do we hook them. I agree with Bill that Atomic Learning is woefully underutilized. One way to get the teachers hooked and increase the likelihood that AL is used is to adopt AL as our launching point for developing all PLOs. Take a look at the AL Toolkit http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/atomictoolkit. Assuming that we have done our due diligence and prepared our teachers to register for AL and view relevant tutorials prior to the PLO. Use the toolkit materials to "promote" our PLOs. Encourage teachers to subscribe to the AL newsletter and our web site blog feeds. Design PLOs with their work in mind - flipcharts using upcoming unit actiities, etc. I think it was Kathy Shrock that said something like, when teaching an unfamiliar application use a familiar task and when teaching an unfamiliar task use a familiar application. We also need to change the mindset so that the "learning" is their bag of bricks to carry and that we are here to coach, and support them to that end.

The speaker makes many thought provoking statements that I think get to the core of what needs to happen in terms of technology's place in education. Curriculum needs to be overhauled and updated to reflect society's needs in terms of education. I think teachers should listen to this speech, because ultimately, success or failure is truly up to them.