To Technologize or Not

"School is about fitting things into tight little boxes that you measure with a test. You can't do that and use these tools." (Kadjer, 2008)
"I stopped doing anything 'cause it wasn't going anywhere and I didn't see myself in any of it."
(Kadjer, 2007)

By "these tools," this student is referring to blogs. This student dislikes writing in school because it is so structured, and a pencil and paper is very limiting. When he goes home, he writes and writes, putting up his own blog, and adds pictures, music, whatever. While I firmly believe that a student's learning and writing must be well grounded in the fundamentals, it is highly important that teachers become more aware of other modes of writing out there in the world of the internet. There are more than just pretty little paragraphs being crafted, there are little movies, links, pictures, sounds, music, etc. With some assistance, students can create multimedia experiences on any subject under the sun. Why wouldn't a teacher want that for their classroom? As the second quote suggests, if they cannot see themselves in what we're doing in the classroom, they will not be engaged. Giving them something to do, something that can be seen, creates a feeling of being able to change something, maybe even the world.
Students are writing and reading blogs from all over the country and the earth. The possibility that someone from another place will read something that you created from your mind, is quite alluring. Essential in this idea is, according to Kadjer, that we must speak to the kids in order to know where to look. We cannot just use computers, typing up papers and looking on websites for understanding, and simply call it high-tech work. We must talk with them, find out what they are looking at, what trends there are, and then explore. They are up on the trends, and what they are interested in will dictate where things are going- they are the audience and the creators; we owe it to them to listen.

Kadjer, S.B. (2008). Educational leadership: Reaching the reluctant learner, March 2008, vol. 65, number 6. The book trailer: engaging teens through technologies.
Kadjer, S.B. (2007). Unleashing potential with emerging technologies. In K. Beers, R.E. Probst, and L. Rief (eds.), Adolescent literacy: turning promise into practice (p213-229). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann