RE: Question 1: Technology in Education

True, technology has become a distracting multimedia toy in the classrooms, but...

I've built a campus infrastructure support hundreds of notebooks computers and labs and library computers and lots of server applications. My greatest fear was that the glitz would kill academic achievement. That's why I built a "corporate" style network suitable for running a small multi-national business. Only with "full" capabilities and up-to-date tools can you get beyond the glitz to the real power of Information Technology.

Regarding, in view of that, the need for "teaching technology" in classes other than computer science ones, I have an anecdote:

Late last year, after administering the network and teaching the comptuer classes and training the other teachers in tech integration techniques, I was in the "labs" during overflow periods when students were rushing around trying to finish key semester projects for their junior and senior year classes. Virtually all the students were "spinning their wheels" trying to include a picture in a term paper or collect Internet source documents or edit their papers or whatever. I went from group to group showing one how to get past one hurdle or another. They then "taught" several others the technique and countless projects spewed out of the printers at the "last minute", but still successful. This was due to effective and focused and specialized "training" given just-in-time. C'est moi, C'est mo...   Er, I mean, it was the highly refined expertise of the IT staff and THEIR PRESENCE IN THE CLASSROOM that made the difference.

Without that expert help at the right time, the technology that I placed in the students' hands was truly a distraction and a great waste of time.

Phil