The other day I was talking with my mother about her college days, and she starts into yet another story I’ve heard about a hundred times about her roommate.  My mom’s roommate in college was an accounting major and owned the first calculator my mom had ever seen.  The calculator cost $90 and could only do the most basic computations.  Mom was very impressed. Now many years later calculators are a fifth of the size and are frequently given away for free. This then prompted a conversation about our different grade school experiences. Mom talked about the days without: book-bags, calculators, mechanical pencils, or projectors instead she remembers classrooms being stocked with: eraser-less pencils, slide-rulers, and some type of special paper for a machined called a mimeograph.  I started thinking about all my classes in grade school and they only ever had over-head projectors.  Only in college did the computer projectors come about, and I can hardly think of having a class without one now.

Thinking about this conversation and seeing so many articles about technology and education. I guess the challenge is using the right technology and using it well.  With this on my mind I can start to see the difficulty schools are having upgrading.  Not only have many essentials become obsolete over the years, but to jump into the digital age with computers getting outdated in just a few short years, it is a daunting task.  Not only is it expensive but many teachers need to learn how to use all the new tools.  It sounds tough.

My 90 year-old grandfather uses his iPad everyday, my 14 year-old sister can turn her ipod into a fully functioning phone, and my parents who grew up with close to no technology both work with new cutting edge technology everyday.  So, while learning and even getting a hold of technology can be difficult, it is a very do able task.

Resources:

How Technology is Using Us

When Kids and Technology Collide