It is not about a lesson plan for a just in time minute. These resources help teachers to understand the use of technology, have some models for its use, create a bridge from practice now to the future, link powerful ideas and models, and new ways of working. The use of technology can change the learning landscape in the place where teachers work, but there has to be involvement , exploration, perhaps personalization, resource gathering, and understanding of the way in which technology changes teaching and learning. This digital divide is often talked about as a chasm in the field of teaching and learning. The reason it is important for schools to not be a place across the digital divide is that for many children, the schools, libraries and community centers may be the only place where they have access to school based technology.
Technology is everywhere in our society.
Where it often is not , is in schools. Miracles have been created in the way in which schools have become wired , but often the wiring and the access are down a hall in a lab distant from the child who may most need to understand and accept the use of technology as a part of what society has to offer. Access Schools are a place where there is often technology, and a great digital divide. Some people are talking about the machine and the wires, and they do not understand that being able to cut the machine on, do email, and do a few programs is not effective technology use. For a teacher there should be time to explore, examine, extricate what there is of value, evaluate how it makes teaching and learning different and how the way in which one uses this information is important to the way in which the student , teacher , and learning communities are working in a transformational way.