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For years now I have wondered about the term “educational technology.” What does it mean? What does it contribute to the world at large? Does it actually make a difference to the students as they graduate and move into the real world?

There is a reason the word technology takes second billing in the phrase. Technology is a tool for helping deliver the education. The hammer and the pneumatic nailer are both tools that reach the same result. One is technical, requiring understanding and practice to use safely and at peak efficiency. The other is a hammer. Are we teaching our students and staffs how to use the nailer at the expense of the hammer or at the expense of being able to choose the right one at the right time?

Each new technology that comes down the pike with furor and fanfare will be replaced by another “superior” technology. Chalkboard to whiteboard to interactive multimedia presentation system. Has the message on the media changed or are we just pandering to a perceived short attention span mindset? “This is the computer generation people! They can’t learn without digital tech!” Funny, I still see groups of kids sitting around a teacher as she reads aloud and turns the pages of a (GASP) book! Why do we have such a hard time accepting the fact sometimes a teacher just wants to use a whiteboard?

Listen, I’m not damning all educational technology. You know me better than that. What I am challenging us with is getting off the high horse that technology is THE answer and look at it as AN answer. We must spend time working with our staffs and helping them think through their options. We also MUST be willing to accept part of a technology solution is the willingness of the user to use the system. We must also accept sometimes the most technical answer is not the best one.

Stop screaming in the echo chamber. Prove you know what you are talking about to people outside the technology field. Present intelligent discussion and options to your staffs and stop the Luddite branding if technology isn’t the chosen solution. In the end it’s all about Benjamin, baby.

Think I’m wrong? Bring it on.

A couple of important facts for your next discussion around, “Why should we be teaching our students this stuff?”

Some 54% of enterprise-size organizations use Web 2.0 technologies, as do 74% of companies with fewer than 500 employees, according to a study Web 2.0 technology adoption and the future of social-media initiatives in enterprises.

Blogs are the most-used Web 2.0 technology (87% of respondents), followed by communities, wikis, RSS feeds and social networking.

The most successful are blogs (44% of respondents), communities (42%) and wikis (39%).

96% say all Web 2.0 technologies they’ve used have been successful; 83% reporting no clear failures.

The greatest obstacle to Web 2.0 deployment is limited internal resources.

Some 64% of those using Web 2.0 technologies rely on a combination of internal- and external-facing media/tools.

“The Awareness research found that…28% of organizations with over 500 employees have budgets greater than $50,000 for web 2.0 tools or social media. The top tools planned are blogs and wikis (56%) but many are also planning to deploy online communities,” writes FASTforward’s Bill Ives.

Is there any greater recommendation or reason for a topic to be included in the curriculum of a school than the ability of that curriculum to help students get a better place in tomorrow’s workforce? Isn’t that the argument used all the time? Well…let’s make sure we use our facts to reinforce the need to use these tools with our students…NOW!

Trends in Adopting Web 2.0 for the Enterprise in 2007

There’s an excellent data gathering exercise over at Tech4Teaching about 1 to 1 laptop programs. I don’t know all the statistical details of the survey, but some items jumped out at me:

The majority of schools allowing 24/7 access require some form of parent payment, whether parents purchase directly from the vendor, through the school, or via lease payments.

I’m curious as to how those programs requiring parental financial investment were launched and positioned to the families. How does it handle those with financial limitations? Does it create a situation of “have’s” and “have-not’s?”

The programs with mixed laptop environments are primarily independent schools with family purchase of hardware (and family choice). Most of these schools set some sort of standard – antivirus, software required, minimum hardware – and parents make the purchase, either independently or from a specific vendor.

Establishment of a recommended standard for machines brought into the school is an excellent idea to maintain a standard level of access and compatibility. I have to ask though…what level of support is provided by the school?

A number of schools have laptop program models which are either optional family purchase and/or have choice of platform. As someone who’s taught in a 1-1 Mac school and in a 1-1 PC school, I can’t imagine laptop-optional or mixed-platform being very effective models for significant integration. I know I could teach in a mixed-platform classroom, but the level of integration, beyond using web-based tools, would be lower than in a classroom with like platform access. (Note: The MacBook with dual boot would likely bridge the gap pretty well.)

The use of web-based tools is an excellent solution to this situation. Applying technologies that are platform independent open up experiences for the students as well as give them access to the same materials no matter their location. This is one of the reasons the new low-cost solutions such as the Asus eee PC are becoming popular.

Tech4Teaching Blog » Blog Archive » Laptop Survey - Final results are in