And speaking of the blossoming 1:1 program here in our overly-large school district (as I was in my previous rant)…

About the same time as our sessions for teachers this month, we heard that the principal of one of the project schools decided to delay implementation until the beginning of the next academic year.

Why? She simply said “We are not ready.”

Which also wasn’t a surprise.

In most of our schools, there is no sense that something fundamental needs to change. It’s all about the tests and the feeling is that any problems we have with kids not passing them can be fixed with what we already have. The same curriculum, pedagogy, and processes.

With putting kids through more time practicing the tested subjects. By collecting more data (always more data). Through “remediation” programs, in which students largely do the same thing they didn’t respond to in their regular classes.

And using computers as data collection terminals, not for creation, collaboration, or communication.

“We are not ready” to change anything about our instructional practice so why bother with the distraction of giving kids computers.