Idolising Children?

While Kenneth Davidson focuses on education funding in today’s Age he misses several important questions about the investment in IT in Australian schools.

1. What is the value of one-off investment in technology that is currently becoming outdated every 18 months? Unless you are willing to fund ongoing IT infrastructure upgrades you are basically setting up the next 10 years of students to be learning on tools that will nnot be capable of handling the tools available.

2. What is the value of providing tools (i.e. computers) if you have not skilled up teachers to effectively support children’s learning and development with this technology? A better investment would be to pay Michael Wesch as a consultant for 3 months and run professional development courses for all teachers in media literacy and connectivity-driven education.

Instead, our kids get a bunch of new computers - another great short-term solution, from a government spouting long-term rhetoric.

Tags: idolisingchildren, policy, education, the age