Re: [LM_NET] LM_NET Digest - 11 Jan 2005 - Special issue (#2005-45)

[Gail K Dickinson <GDickins@ODU.EDU>]

I have read the new ed tech plan (Toward a New Golden Age).   My strongest
concern with the plan is that it makes the assumption that all students are
tech-savvy and online-based.  We know that's not true.  Students with home
computers (notice the plural), speedy connectivity, and money for
additional software and hardware are perhaps, but many students are not.
Those forced to use public library or school computers are limited in what
they can do (email, chat, download)  and limited in where they can go due
to strong filters.  Some students are truly not interested in technology,
and choose not to use it whenever possible.

I do see libraries and librarians at every turn in this report.  We are the
tech-savvy leaders, the ones that are encouraging classroom teachers to
incorporate technology and are preparing students and teachers to use
digital content.  Integrated data systems can only help to prove the
effectiveness of money spent on school library resources, staff, and
training opportunities.  Of course, not mentioned are the school principals
demanding drill-and-practice to increase test scores, pacing guides that
limit the number of class periods spent on each topic regardless of the
learning that occurs, and district administrators threatening dire
consequences to any teacher "wasting" time on learning not directly related
to a test answer, or in "wasting" time in computer labs and libraries.

We are there in this report.  If this event is change-making, then we need
to stand up and point to the ways that good school libraries are making
these events happen in good schools.  Each state, and AASL, should be
developing their responses and their own scenarios, pointing out the way it
works when it works well.   We also perhaps should point out the way it
doesn't work, in schools funded far below what they should be, with
teachers so burdened with covering all of the answers on the upcoming test
that they cannot take time to make sure that students learned any of them,
and with school libraries so underfunded that they cannot assist students
falling behinds their wealthier peers.

Gail K. Dickinson
School Library Media Program
249-6 Dept of Educational Curriculum and Instruction
Darden College of Education
Old Dominion University
gdickins@odu.edu
757-683-6683
Norfolk, VA

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