How Schools can Cope with the New Technology c.8

In chapter 8 of Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology it discussed many ways that schools can cope with new technology. Because of how much time students are spending on video games and watching T.V. , school activities need to be much more engaging. An interesting idea that they touched on is having narrow focused certifications that are general to all schooling and by completing them they would respect specific skills.  This would have all classes and schools maintain ‘certificates’ of specific studies, and receiving a credential would be similar to receiving a diploma, but in smaller steps.  This could benefit students because they would all have the same guidelines to follow and would have the same starting point and opportunities.  Although it does bring up many questions and makes me wonder how different this really is from the typical school system we need now, it sounds like the certificates are the same as grades and completions of classes. This is also a huge disadvantage to students who are unsure of what they want to do as they grow up.  The only difference in this case would be that students would determine when they feel prepared to take the course exam.

The book talked about a tool many universities use today, Desire2Learn, aka D2L for online access to discussion boards, collaborative project development spaces and online textbooks and readings. These tools similar to D2L give teachers the availability to use the discussion boards as well and help explore and engage in students work. Another benefit to these types of programs is in most cases it can give nearly immediate responses and the ability to work with classmates.