Creating The WIRED Classroom

[Jamie McKenzie <mckenzie@FROMNOWON.ORG>]

    From Now On - The Educational Technology Journal

    -----------------------------------------------------------
    Vol 7|No 6|March|1998

You will find the full, hyper-text version of this article with images and
related Internet resources at  http://fromnowon.org

This online issue also includes an online workshop designed to show
teachers how they may engage students in year long studies which build up
their persistence and research skills.

The following is a brief excerpt . . .

          The WIRED Classroom:Creating Technology Enhanced
                   Student-Centered Learning Environments

                             by Jamie McKenzie

   ----------------------------------------------------------------------
   I. Introduction

   What is a wired classroom?

   Wires do very little by themselves for kids . . .

   Entirely too much attention has been devoted to the wires and
   the cabling, to the business of connecting classrooms to the
   Internet. Too many public figures have climbed upon this bandwagon as
   if the mere act of networking would create some miracle. The promises
   and grandiose claims pile up as high as the sky. According to many
   folks, networking offers the same magic as Popeye's can of spinach .
   . . super powers for an Age of Information.

   This may be a boondoggle of enormous proportions.
   Having witnessed four years of efforts in a fully networked school
   district which offered its students robust access to the Electronic
   Highway beginning in 1994-95, I can report no miracles, no amazing
   transformations and no phenomenal shifts in student achievement which
   can be traced to the advent of these information technologies. Some
   great things happened, not because we had a network, but because we
   invested in staff development and we encouraged good teaching.

   Networking only pays off if . . . we provide enough computers, enough
   staff development and a combination of powerful tools with rich
   information. This article defines the kinds of wired classrooms which
   would make a huge capital investment in networks worthwhile.

Continued at http://fromnowon.org

=A91998, JMcKenzie, all rights reserved.

Jamie McKenzie
Editor - "From Now On - The Educational Technology Journal"

mckenzie@fromnowon.org            http://fromnowon.org

901 Twelfth Street
Bellingham, WA 98225
(360) 647-8759
"The question is the answer."  "Hits are not Truth."

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