Sunday, February 8, 2009

where are we going?


Recently some of my teachers and I went to the local high school in an effort to do some "vertical teaming". If you aren't familiar with the term, basically it means do we at the elementary/middle school level teach things that make sense for the students in high school? I got to meet with the tech directors and see some of the rooms and labs. I asked a question about student e-mails (which has to do with an earlier post of mine) and all of the web 2.0 tools that are out there. The answer I got was "we don't really do any of that stuff. Our focus is more on Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access then on any of those tools." When I asked if they had any computer classes the answer was "not this semester, nobody had signed up". On a side note (unrelated to technology but disconcerting none the less), they had to put all the music classes on "hold" because they were trying to increase the science and other "core curriculum" classes being offered and they just don't have the space or the money.
Now, in this school's defense, their enrollment took a big hit this year and of course, money is always an issue, but I was surprised that there was really very little push to use any of the collaborative tools that were out there. What about anyone else? Have a similar experience?
(photo Bryan Adams High School Hallway taken by Dean Terry)

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