February 2011 |
Volume
68
|
Number
5
Teaching
Screenagers
Pages
7-7
Screenagers: Making the Connections
Marge Scherer
"Education has to change. We can't pull kids into
learning
in school if they are engaged in a different
world outside school."
"If you don't know how to use technology in
class, you are
in trouble. But, of course, technology is a
double-edged sword. You can use it
poorly, or
you can use it well."
The principals speaking were two of the
candidates for the
ASCD Outstanding Young Educator Award, which will
be presented in March at
ASCD's Annual Conference in San Francisco. A
group of us were interviewing 13
finalists—both administrators and teachers—over
the course of a few weeks, and
we were
talking to them about their leadership, their creativity, their whole
child philosophy, their impact on student
achievement, and, of course, their
technology
use. All the educators spoke to us via Adobe ConnectPro, a two-way
technology that allowed us to see, hear, and
record them in their
schools—whether in New York, Oregon, the
Philippines, or places in between—while
they
viewed us in our meeting room in Alexandria, Virginia.
Lisa C. Hurst on 05 May 15"AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat
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