iPods, Cell Phones, etc.

All schools are struggling with the wide use of cell phones, iPods and other electronic devices in schools. We are certainly in for challenges as the prices of these devices continue to plummet. Certain sage observers even predict that laptops are in their final chapter of widespread use, at least at the prices they are today. More simple, smaller and cheaper devices are appearing as we speak.

Today, I noticed that Apple came out with an iPad Touch today that is essentially a handheld Internet Browser/iPod. The price I saw was $244 for a simple machine that gives the user web capabilities and 20,000 songs worth of storage space. Man, it would take me the rest of my life to listen to that many songs. Roughly 1000 hours of music.

I am convinced that we are going to have to embrace this electronic upheaval in our society, including education. Doug Johnson, Tech Director at Mankato (MN) public schools pens the Blue Skunk blog. He feels that educators should embrace all new forms of technology, including iPods and cellphones and whatever new generations of faddish technology emerges.

The real question is how we implement these unnerving devices into our relatively stable teaching situations. How do we train teachers to keep up with the changes when they are already deeply behind their students? How do we engage learners when our technology skills may do more to embarrass than enlighten? I'm not convinced that massive changes will occur, if history is our guide. Traditional teaching methods seem to have alot more traction than they're ever given credit for.

This is not to say that there will not be people that will employ useful methods. The question is how long, and to what degree, it will take for us to change methodologies that have been in place for hundreds of years. There must be something behind this delivery mode that has made it so dominant and relatively impermeable.