Rant Part Deux and Thoughts on the Evolution of 1:1

It isn't so much the Kool-Aid. I am more upset with my fellow, in-the-field-educators, who are dealing with the day to day struggles of a school, and lap up the lip service paid to us by people who are no more than consultants who live on the laurels of the past. I look around at those who are "spotlights," or "keynotes," and I think to myself, "Self, where is the credibility of this person? They only worked in a school for a few years, and now they have sold out and are peddling snake oil ideas that might have been useful 5 years ago, but are largely irrelevant today. OR, they left teaching after 20 something years, but have not actually been in a classroom with students in 10 years or more!"

I look at the work Dr. Margaret Johnson has done on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants in Palos Heights School District 118 and I respect that work and take it as solid and real because SHE STILL WORKS IN PALOS HEIGHTS 118! She is living her dissertation, which by the way, should be a book unto itself. If you can meet her at IETC in November, do so!

David Jakes, another person who is an active eduspeaker, and is an active participant in Downers Grove 99!

To be honest, I have been asked to speak at a few events, but what do I say? Do what I would like to do, but I can't because reality doesn't let me do it?" That would intellectually dishonest. I am trying to get my district to understand that our 1:1 is dying on the vine because we are still trying to make these machines into a lab machine circa 1999. Only yesterday, I sat with a principal... one of our laptops sitting on the table, and I said to him, there has to be a change. We HAVE to examine how we are going to grow this program. We grew up using computers in a very static environment (boot disks, floppies, Apple IIEs), but kids today would see that scenario as worthless and a waste of time. Even now, we restrict the use of blogs, wikis, email, instant messaging, webcams... the things that make having a 1:1 start to meet the promise for the price. I even said at one point that in 5 years, TV shows will be a thing of the past and kids will virtually watch their programs on their portable computers or devices. Lo and behold, later that afternoon I saw that NBC is now going to provide their new fall shows free to download with embedded commercials.

Look, my goals right now for my job are skewed with what I would like to do intellectually. I have to handle eRate, SIS, NWEA data, imaging, repair, diagnostics, networking, servers, the tech plan... all the while I am trying to pilot the 8th grade honors writing class on how to use Moodle to help with the writing process. My thoughts are to expand the usage of Moodle to help with writing since our recent state scores showed deficiencies in our abilities to write across the curriculum.

I am starting to ramble. It is late. I was up at 4AM for the second straight day, and it is now 11:30PM. I leave for Disney in the morning for a week. Maybe I will have more of a clear head when I return. Less stressed. However, I will be keeping critical eyes on those "experts."