Three Thoughts for the Day

Web 2.0 alone will not make your students better students.

Pencils alone will not make your art students better artists.

A hammer alone will not make your apprentice a better carpenter.

But a master teacher -- with expertise in the use of the tool and a vision for the beauty the tool can produce -- can help inspire the student to use hammer, pencil, or web browser to do incredible things. Things even the teacher never dreamed possible.

And then that process is passed on and on and on...

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The argument against technology: Well, if these things are all just tools then what is the big deal? We have plenty of tools.

The reply: How long would it take you to heat your house with a flint and stone?

***

My wife says to me this afternoon: "The best thing computer technology has to offer is a new way to communicate." And that's it in a nutshell: that's sort of the history of human relations itself. From drawing in the sand with a stick to painting on a cave wall to molding a signature seal to writing on clay tablets to writing on papyrus to writing on animal skin to printing on paper with lead type to printing in dot matrix to printing on a laser printer to publishing online. From grunting and pointing to yelling across a valley to fashioning a horn to using messengers to creating a postal system to Morse code to the invention of the telephone to radio to film to television to video to YouTube to Uchannel.

That's it.