Earlier today, I was involved in a conversation regarding technology and today's educational system. I know this strays a little bit from topic of this blog, but it is still technology related and pertinent so I thought it was worthy of posting here. I have family and close friends that are involved in our education system today. One of my good friends, is the technology director at a large ISD. I have several teacher friends and my own mom is a principal at an elementary school. It has been interesting to hear each person's perspective on the role technology should play in the school system. 
Teachers don't have enough time to learn or teach technology because they are teaching towards state mandated tests that don't require technology. Administrators are aware that technology is important and try to use it as a teaching tool to help the kids learn the necessary skills to achieve good grade scores on said mandated tests. IT Directors understand better than most how important it is to the future of today's kids. Teachers should be not just using technology, but teaching it to the students. It is part of our world more than ever and will continue to become more and more important as time passes. Parents should be equally involved with teaching their kids technology as opposed to just saying "we will let the schools teach them that". Being active in their technological world has a greater chance of protecting them from the threats than just turning your head and hoping they will do the right thing. Devices now come with GPS, instant message, txt, email, video chat, cameras...any number of ways that can potentially be harmful if not coaches on appropriate uses. Services like Google Latitude could easily be leveraged by criminals to know who is where and when if you aren't careful how you use it. This is the type of knowledge kids need to be learning and unfortunately most parents aren't even aware of how to do this effectively. It is concerning to me on several fronts, first and foremost it seems it is just a ball and chain strapped to everyone of these kids today...the last thing they need is something holding them back, but it also puts our future in jeopardy compared to some other more progressive countries. We want the kids of our time to be the future leaders of the world, we should definitely not exclude technology from the fold.
That all being said, I am not a parent and no immediate prospects of being one. However, I am a VERY proud uncle and definitely want the best for my nieces and nephew. I am concerned I see the exact same behavior with some of their parents. Behind in technology and in many cases afraid to embrace it as a useful tool in their daily lives. I hope they will reconsider and let me help them. Their kids crave the information, always wanting to play on tablets and phones. They could do so much more. www.WeVideo.com is a very cool service I would like to get my 10 year old niece involved with. What a great creative and relatively cheap outlet for her to get involved with technology. The days of the performing the "play" on the hearth are gone...now with cell phone video cameras and technology like this...the family can settled down on the couch and watch a youtube video of the performance edited by the kids themselves. Something that can be enjoyed over and over as well as shared with others. It doesn't change the kids creative moments, it just allows them new tools to enhance them and increases their audience to everyone that couldn't be present for the performance!!! Just think about it...technology shouldn't be something to avoid, it should be embraced and taught to our kids to help them achieve more as they get older!
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