Beuchley et al.

Brian,

I agree with your thoughts that class time with students is limited and this prevents me from implementing and trying many different ways of learning. The other issue is when you introduce a new tool or program into a course sometimes it doesn't have the affect you were looking for. Generally I will introduce one or two new programs or tools into a course for each term and observe the results. If I feel it was beneficial then I will continue to use it and add on to it. This however is a slow process considering the rapid changes that are happening with technology.

In regards to Ipads I don't believe schools will ever have the funds to fully pay for all students to have one. Instead I would say that most students would bring their own and those that can't afford one would have to apply to receive one. As you mention there would be many problems if they tried to implement such a system. Our internet is slow at our school most of the time but if you had 1500+ students trying to use it at the same time it would become unusable.

The other reason that I am slow on adopting new technology is like you mention all the policies (like FOIPPA) that limit what you can and can't do.

Colin I agree that schools do not have the funds to buy technology for every student in the school. I believe in the future, the money spent on textbooks will be spent on technology, and the students will access something similar to wiki spaces in the humanities at least, thus removing books and/or e-books from the equation. Martin

Hi Colin and Martin,

I wonder if using iPads or other tech ed materials like computers, etc. would make a different in reducing paper copies when most of the course is on the computer (also less textbook costs). Our school constantly has paper jams or problems with the photocopier and it results in calling in a specialist to fix it. What a waste of educational resource money! Teachers still seem to print mass amounts of paper like it's no big deal. Over the long run, with less photocopier maintenance and paper costs, perhaps more could be in the budget for the technology that replaces a lot of that paper...Just a thought.

Hi Alicia, I have been trying to reduce the amounts of copies that I make in my math and science classroom this year. I teach grade 9's, and both of our textbooks are available online. I did not check out textbooks to my students unless they were fully aware that they were to return the textbook or pay the $90 replacement fee. I received a huge amount of resistance to parents because their student MUST have a textbook. Breaking this pattern is going to take some time. I also posted all of my notes online this year, in the hopes of reducing the paper copies that I would have to make. After having a group website for all of our core classes for grade 9's for one year, I still have students asking me where they can find the notes (mostly because final exams are starting). It's frustrating to do this extra work to find that it isn't being used by parents or students. I haven't reduced my photocopying at all, but I have reduced the numbers of "lost" textbooks. Rose