As part of the Department of Education’s decision to outfit all 7000 teachers in New Brunswick with laptop computers and expand the 1:1 student laptop program  to almost 3000 students in 28 schools province-wide, they also committed to hiring two or three dozen technology mentors.  I am one of them (and the only one specifically dedicated to a 1:1 program). We get together once in a while to talk shop and share ideas.  

We were together a couple of weeks ago.  I happened to be engaged in a conversation with several of my colleagues when one of them (I can’t recall right now exactly who it was) made an astute observation which I have been chewing on since.

The 1962 movie The Music Man told the story of a con artist who went into a town and persuaded the locals to fork over their cash and he, in turn, would supply musical instruments and teach their children to play.  In the end he is exposed, reforms and does indeed teach the town to play by focusing their efforts on forming and playing in a band. In the end, it wasn’t about the mechanics of playing an instrument that made people successful as musicians, it was about their collective vision of making music together that made musicians out of individuals.

There is an analogy here with what we do as educators.  It is not about the technology.  We can teach the mechanics of the technology all we want, but learners (students and teachers alike) will never be truly successful without a reason to learn.  Technology has no real reward in and of itself, but is only valuable within the context of authentic communication.  This is especially true in our classrooms.

We need to place more focus on giving our students a reason and opportunity to use the technology.  They will figure out – like motivated learners always seem to do – how to use it! 

Our only question now should be what kind of music we want to play together – the instruments will take care of themselves, eh?

technorati tags: education, technology