From my reader this morning - Joe 1.0 - Joe's Non Netbook by Chris Lehmann
The improv video is a brilliant illustration of the textbook as the disability and the need for Universal Design for Learning! How engaged were those students? How able were they to work with the material? How accessible is a textbook?
It's clearly time to review our curriculum purchases as we enter another budget cycle.
I concur with your point, but what is your suggestion on how to mass-educate parents and communities that textbooks are no longer going to be used in place of an alternative. And, what is that alternative if you are lacking the technology?
ReplyDeleteWhat an awesome video! Of course kids want to utilize the technology they're comfortable with for learning. I think that the technology can be made available through the schools with the proper grants and action plan. Laptops can be made relatively cheaply, there just has to be an incentive to let the schools get ahold of them.
ReplyDeletewith what textbooks cost - and what smartphones, netbooks, and handhelds cost, I think most schools would be ahead - even cost-wise - embracing the new technologies which create engagement, allow collaboration, support non-linear learning, and which are not limited and outdated the moment they arrive.
ReplyDeleteWhich makes more sense? An American History Text or the Library of Congress combined with UMich's "Making of America" and UHouston's online history?
- Ira Socol