Originally posted: June 8th, 2007

Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:

My first computer was a Commodore Vic-20 and I can remember being excited to get the 16k adapter. Now students walk around with more information storage than most desktop computers had when the same students were in diapers… and I’m not even considering the information available to them by searching the web!

As Kris’ comment below suggests, many students don’t know the capabilities these machines have… should we not be helping them learn what’s possible?

Comments on the original post:

1. I’ve used my cell phone as a calculator lots of times in school, but I always have to explain its function to the teacher when they come over to confiscate it (inevitably). Part of the problem is that a lot of people don’t actually know about the other programs on a cell phone – it makes phone calls, and that’s good enough for them! It’s like people who use Firefox but don’t install any extensions or use tabs (such users exist).Cell phones are like Web 2.0, they’re massively useful to those who actively explore all the options and add-ons and know how to use each one – the power users.I was the ‘tech person’ among my roommates at a spring break conference in the States solely because I was the only one who had figured out how to work both the radiator and the coffee machine in our hotel room – when our alarm clock died and I pulled out my cell phone in substitute, you could almost hear the unspoken disbelief: “Our cell phones can do that?“:) It’s good to be tech-savvy.

   (PS, these are amazing: http://www.lifehacker.com/search/cell%20phone/all/ )

   Kris on Friday, 08 June 2007, 09:37 CEST

2. I love this quote:”When someone wants to ban something, I ask myself,
   how can we use this to help us in education? ‘It is a new tool’. Not obstacles but opportunities.”
   Do we think Google bans some tool from their creative team?
   Thanks for the link to “Pay Attention”–very thought-provoking.

   Carolyn Foote on Friday, 08 June 2007, 14:13 CEST