YCST Online Resources

Executive Perspective Harnessing Kids’ Tech Fascinationby DANIEL A. DOMENECH I am intimidated by people like Alan November whose fingers glide over their computer keys and in the process go to websites that offer the answers to all the questions that would otherwise go unanswered. I do e-mail and an occasional PowerPoint presentation. I am proud of the fact I now can do e-mail on my BlackBerry as well. That’s the extent of my prowess in technology. Daniel A. Domenech Jillian, my 17-year-old high school senior, is another story. She sleeps with her iPhone under her pillow. If it were waterproof, I am sure that she would bathe with it. She does incredible things with her MacBook, from videos to post on YouTube to the content of her Facebook pages. Getting her to do her homework is a challenge, but getting her to turn off her tech tools and go to sleep is an even bigger challenge.This is the message that November, Keith Krueger and other presenters at our AASA Seattle Summit in midsummer conveyed: Education is missing the boat by not taking advantage of the love affair between our kids and technology.Personal PanicI was a young superintendent

Executive Perspective Harnessing Kids’ Tech Fascination by DANIEL A. DOMENECH I am intimidated by people like Alan November whose fingers glide over their computer keys and in the process go to websites that offer the answers to all the questions that would otherwise go unanswered. I do e-mail and an occasional PowerPoint presentation. I am proud of the fact I now can do e-mail on my BlackBerry as well. That’s the extent of my prowess in technology. Daniel A. Domenech Jillian, my 17-year-old high school senior, is another story. She sleeps with her iPhone under her pillow. If it were waterproof, I am sure that she would bathe with it. She does incredible things with her MacBook, from videos to post on YouTube to the content of her Facebook pages. Getting her to do her homework is a challenge, but getting her to turn off her tech tools and go to sleep is an even bigger challenge. This is the message that November, Keith Krueger and other presenters at our AASA Seattle Summit in midsummer conveyed: Education is missing the boat by not taking advantage of the love affair between our kids and technology. Personal Panic I was a young superintendent on Long Island, N.Y., when, in 1978, I bought the first set of Commodore PET computers for our schools. You could play Space Invaders on it, but mostly you had to learn to program the darn thing to get it to do anything. High school courses focused primarily on learning programming language. Few could afford to buy a Commodore for home use and the power of the Internet had yet to be unleashed.