I think there are two separate issues here.

First one is learning how to use technology for research etc. Here i agree with Luke: there are many ways to use technology for our advantage, and it is increasingly important that our educational system knows how to do this. Unfortunately it seems that most of the teachers are not open-minded enough here.

Second thing is the impact of widespread access to technology, *and* to ever-more-intense media on children. I think that the situation here is not as bright as Luke would want it to be, and that “exposure to technology” poses real risks for children. I don’t think that granting them unrestricted access to technology would be good.

I tend to disagree with some points…
Short attention span problem is imho obvious, many my peers (20-25) are checking facebook constantly on their phones(and when not checking it themselves, they get notifications), which is problem when trying to concentrate on complex problems

As for me personally, I grew to really hate memorizing anything thanks to electronic sources, which now seriously harms my performance in exams where we’re allowed to use only our brains and pens. (in some exams we’re allowed to use paper notes, but phones/tablets are never allowed because of obvious cheating capabilities)… And although exams are artificially created problem with very limited real-world link it’s still very real problem, which, at least for now, justifies avoiding reliance on technology…

Still, I’d love to see elearning etc more widespread and flexible

Brilliant post. I have myself to fight that very attitude on a daily basis, being (happily) married to a juvenile probation officer. My wife, although quite computer literate herself, comparing with her colleagues, his absolutely convinced that Facebook, the Internet and video games are harmful for kids at any dose above 1/2 hour per day. But I am fighting a losing battle, because there is an entire corpus of government approved pseudo-scientific studies about internet addiction, links to criminality and so on. Based on these assumptions, massive programs such as the EU – Safer Internet policy are trying to prevent kids to stay online too long, to play video games, etc. OK, to be fair, these programs and these efforts are fortunately very inefficient and their results limited. Nevertheless, they are harming kids every day, of course in the name of child protection.

The anti-technology attitudes will die off naturally as older teachers are replaced with youngers ones — who themselves will eventually hold a different set of stale beliefs. It’s just the current version of, “Kids these days …”.

On the other hand, I can reach some agreement with them, but for completely different reasons. For example, purchasing individual iPads for an entire kindergarten class. That seems like a really poor use of limited education funding. While technology certainly enhances education, it’s not necessarily always cost effective.

Also, as you said yourself, portable devices (tablets, smart phones) tend to be poor for producing things. They’re most useful for consumption. A good education should involve plenty of both, especially those future engineers and programmers who should be tinkering with these devices.

This is a very interesting post. I have a bunch of thoughts on the matter and I’ll get around to organizing someday, but I want to record some of them here. I do believe that we are facing a challenge with regards to technology and education. I agree that by and large teachers (even new, young teachers) are hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with the changes in the air. Personally, I think one answer could be transitioning to a more personalized system of education: the teacher suggests a lesson plan and resources to look up and points you in the right direction. There are a small number of introductory lectures to start things off and then the students are left to their own devices with some guidance. They can explore on their own, learn and do to their hearts’ content with a teacher acting as a guide and applying gentle pressure to push the students in the right direction.

Of course this means that teachers will have to be familiar with a wide breadth of the material and that this will demonstrate even greater variance in students’ abilities. Perhaps the hardest institutional problem will be to abandon standardized testing (for the most part) and move to more of a portfolio/recommendation based system.

Technology will enable us to create a system of personalized that can unlock human potential like never before, but we need people who are able and willing to guide that unlocking. And I think we are sorely missing that.