Summer Drift

The purpose of this blog is to advance technology in the KW school district. Many teachers in last week's inservice were exposed to the 'bloggin technology. We're not sure of the value at this time of these musings online, but anything that generates attention to education has to be good for our students and district. I'd recommend, like I would for our staff, that if you think you have something important to say, you entertain the idea of blogging. I think it has reasonable applications for our teachers and students, for sure.

My link of the week has to do with a description of the Internet generation, our current students. I remember logging in during the first days of the Internet only 13 years ago. Thanks to a visionary Superintendent, I was able to advance myself as a teacher. With a bit of prompting, I became enlightened to a technology that would transform myself as an educator, and hopefully my students through this transformation. The students of today do not look at digital technologies as an event that has happened, rather as a circumstance of their entire life. I'm not sure we have a full handle of this, but would offer the link below as a way in which you can understand aspects of their life in a different fashion. Check it out!

http://connectwithkids.com/products/internetgeneration.shtml

This past week, we suffered the deaths of one student, as well as a former student. Each of these former students has a rich memoir etched in the history of KW.

I’ve come to dread what summer brings, despite the opportunity to “change gears”. More than ever, students drifting into a summer mode—outdoors, indoors, no reading, high activity, low activity, low relationships—suffer from this time period. I truly believe that in my career we will see yearlong schools for this reason. For the most part, students simply do not have the “things to do” as they did yesteryear. Fewer chores, less work to do, less people to share with and more money available are all contributing reasons to a pandemic for students of today. For multiple reasons, summer vacation simply does not provide students of today a similar experience to what we did.