Corinne Urbas's List: technology in education

• We’ve had open enrollment for a long time in our system—before technology.  Parents can open-enroll their students in any school in the district (or state,  if there is space). Here, space is supposed to be based on lottery. I would not  have had my son in this public system if it were not for the open enrollment  option to a diverse experiential school instead of the very traditional affluent  neighborhood school.
• The debilitating pressure for teachers to raise test scores and become  tech-smart has left many potentially fine teachers in the dust. Concurrently,  overall SOL results have not statistically improved in many states. Some  so-called technology such as overhead displays, streaming and other visual aids  are invaluable in today’s classroom. (Really, it’s simply modernization; just as  hand calculators replaced the slide rule and brain flexibility.) And  college-level on-line courses are excellent for ticket-punching fundamentals.  However, most advanced students prefer the human and social connection of the  traditional classroom. Decreasing the amount of human interaction in the K-12  classroom may cause irreparable damage.
  
• They need to be with supportive adults, and with each other, to trigger the  powerful empathetic learning responses we are only beginning to study with NMR.  I think the question they would type out, from their cubicles, is, "How can I  get to you?"
  

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