Finally, the class has reached mastery
Close to twenty years ago, my “job profile” took a shift toward a Brave New World model. The government decided that new technologies might be important in education, and a limited amount of money was made available to test the premise. That is, I was hired to see if computers (and other related toys) might someday be worth underwriting on a broad scale in the classroom.
Now, we know that two decades is a very long time. In the history of the personal computer, it’s a lifetime. We spent (intelligently and with great restraint) in order to sample the new wares. A CD-ROM reader worth $1200 was exactly the right amount when only two models were available. Robotics with Lego; the right choice at the right time. The biggest hurdle was at the level of the user. Teachers weren’t “on the train”, and my role was to show them that the step up to the passenger car wasn’t as painful as it seemed.
Today, I spent the day as a facilitator, showing groups of teachers that the new web application we would be using to prepare report cards was simple and intuitive. I finished my afternoon quite impressed with just how far we’ve all come. All of my “students” were at ease with the process. There were no “deals” being cut in the back row to have someone else handle the data entry. Nothing that I had to demonstrate was “over the top”. All of the questions I received were on topic, and at no point did I get the feeling that this would require additional training time. Easy as making a PB&J sandwich.
We have finally made the computer into an essential tool for the classroom teacher. Yes, it required spending money on hardware, software, infrastructure, training. Yes, I think the cost was more than justified. If this is the level of expertise that the system now can boast, then the next few years are going to be both easy and interesting.
