Blogs on Technology Integration

While the schools in our district are not far apart in terms of distance, it is often difficult for them to make connections with each other even though we have the best intentions and we all realize the potential for increased engagement when we do facilitate these experiences. As part of an increased emphasis on technology integration in our district, as well as our mixed device program, we've started using some tools that we have in common to facilitate these connections between classrooms throughout the district.

When I was a kid, the main reason my mom limited our television time was x-rays. Back in 1968, when I was seven years old, the same age my daughter is now, a big study on radioactive emissions from cathode ray tubes had just come out, and so our new color Philco had become the enemy. My brother and I had to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and the NY Jets win the Super Bowl from 15 feet away, in the corner of the room diagonally opposite from the set.

I was just ten years old when the circumstances of life led me to lock-picking for the first time.

No, I wasn’t starving, nor had I been abducted by a band of thieves. I was driven by something which, at the time, seemed much more urgent.

You see, my mother had lost her patience in trying to compete for our attention with the Nintendo. So, having determined that self-regulation with these newfangled computer games was impossible, she resorted to placing a lock on the power cable to prevent unauthorized access.

We were devastated.

When I explained the assignment, the classroom erupted in cries and groans. Students in my sophomore “The Individual and Society” course were to spend 48 hours, from 7:00 p.m. Friday to 7:00 p.m. Sunday, without electronic media. The course examines the relationship between the individual and society in three modes: politics, economics, and culture. This was an assignment during the third mode, and we were exploring how electronic media shape an individual’s relation to the larger culture.