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Reflection

In order to promote the active use of technology in education, schools have to change the ways they train teachers and administrators. According to Solomon and Schrum, one of the most successful ways is to use technology to learn how to use technology (111). Unfortunately, my district is only using the pretense of doing this. An online, book study of ways to begin to utilize technology in education was offered. Principals chose who would participate. Only teachers who currently utilize technology on a regular basis were enrolled. The reasons given were that they would be comfortable with the online format for training, and that those teachers who are afraid of technology would not participate fully. A dozen teachers and I, who already integrate technology into many of our lessons, spent a month studying how to begin to integrate technology into our lessons. The online training looks good to outsiders, but wasted valuable resources that could have been used to train teachers who don’t know how or where to begin using Web 2.0 tools to enhance their students’ learning. Educational leaders have inherited the task of guiding not only the intellectual growth of their students, but also their teachers (Solomon & Schrum, 117). They must help teachers make the transition to using new technologies and new methods (118). Unfortunately, this will mean making decisions that will make some of their staff unhappy or uncomfortable. Prensky reminds us that the most important changes required of educators are not technological, but conceptual (13). If we are going to prepare our students for the world in which they will live, we must change how teachers teach. Prensky, M. (2010). // Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning. //Thousand Oaks, CA. Corwin. Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007) // Web 2.0: new tools, new schools. //Eugene, OR. International Society for Technology in Education.