I spent some of my time this summer break perusing ed tech magazines, reading about the modern classroom.  Clean flat tables scattered about, ready for students to pull out their netbooks and digitally turn the page 331 and click on the link to the accompanying online simulation.

I also spent time these last eight weeks sending tweets, reading an array of online material, collaborating, editing, posting and producing.  But when I walked into my school today for the first time since June, it really hit me how different things are going to be for our students when they come back in a few days.  We just don’t have the hardware, the software, the training or the willingness to look beyond the “fluff” that technology brings to the classroom.  Despite our yearly computer budget allocation, we will not meet the digital learning style of our students.

Preparing one of the classrooms for clunky desktop computers to run our new reading program, I spent much of the afternoon moving stacks of textbooks out of the way so I could reach the electrical outlets and clear a space for the computer tables. Some of the books were new and others outdated. What a waste of time, energy and resources it was for me to have to move these books – not to mention the administrator that ordered them and unpacked them the over the last two decades. The text of all these books would fit on a flash drive. They could be readily downloaded from a web space.  Yet closets and classrooms all over the city are dedicated to keeping them around.

I understand there are budget cuts, but if we really want to invest in education, put a digital tablet in every student and teacher’s hand and let’s move on already. We are done with the laptop carts, four computers in a classroom, one or two labs in a school.

Maybe Apple’s tablet will be the answer.  I wonder what the group discount would be on a purchase of two million of them? I will gladly take a salary cut to help the DOE make the down payment.