I just got back from the Tennessee Educational Technology Association (TETA) Conference in Jackson, TN. It was a great conference and I came home with all kinds of ideas to bring back to my school this fall.
The keynote speaker was Jason Ediger. He is the Director of Mobility and Content for Apple, Inc. I am a PC user with an iPod, but I left that conference wanting an iPad, Macbook with iLife for myself and iPod touches for my classroom. Ediger showed a picture of his three-year-old son who has had his own iPod Touch since he was 18 months old. He has age-appropriate apps and knows how to use them. When Ediger sends his son to school in two years "they will take it away from him". This is why Ediger is so passionate about changing the mindset of education when it comes to using the technologies that our students already have and use every day.
This was a common thread in several of the sessions I attended. Students have cell phones and iPods, yet we tell them to put them away or sometimes we take them away. If they are lucky we will let them use a desktop computer or laptop for certain projects or let them have a turn at the interactive whiteboard (don't get me wrong- I love them). Why shouldn't we be utilizing the powerful pocket computers that we all carry with us every day?
My husband was at the conference with me. On our last night we went out and stopped at the Sprint store to upgrade his cell phone. He got a Moment and we have been blown away with what that phone can do. Calling it a phone seems silly. It is a handheld computer. There are over 350,000 apps for this phone. The educational opportunites are limitless.
It is time that we, as educators, step up and allow our students to take their computers out of their pockets and use them for good.
See the newspaper story on the conference here: http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20100715/NEWS01/7150310/Educators-see-latest-tech-up-close
