Alex Ragone dropped by with a comment today, and in it, he mentioned that he was leading a chat over at www.webcastacademy.net/chat on Friday about school change and teacher accountability. Since I’m a fan of Alex’s work, I headed over to the site. The launching point for the conversation is the editor’s note from this month’s Edutopia. It is, by and large, an interesting and thought-provoking article (do we expect any less from Edutopia?), but one passage stuck in my craw:

Too often, when a discussion is dominated by the question "How?" we dash toward the immediately attainable ("We need more PCs!") and postpone the question of larger purpose ("How can we teach students to be critical thinkers when they go online?").

These are the kinds of comments that really make me bang my head on my desk.

I am sure there are districts out there that have all the money and equipment they need. I am sure there are schools that are underutilizing what they already have. But I know too many colleagues from New York City who are doing the impossible with next to no equipment. I’m meeting a lot of people in Philadelphia who are doing them same.

And the thing is that. over all, I agree with Mr. Daly that is has to be about the deeper questions that extend far beyond the "we need the stuff," I also know that all the deep thinking about these new tools won’t and don’t matter until we can get them into the
kids’ hands. It’s why I’m in love with the One Laptop Per Child folks, because they get it… they’re building a pedagogical tool that every school will be able to afford.

Let’s be honest on both sides — many, many schools need to change the way in which they look at these tools so that they can fully realize their potential, but we also need to figure out how we’re going to create an equitable society where every student has access to those tools.