I really do love the entire “Did you know?” series. If you have not had a chance to see them all I have posted them below. With “Did you know? 4.0” it really does put a lot of things into perspective as does the entire series. Times are changing and they are very exponential. Things that use to take us hours to do now we can do in minutes due to technology, and sometimes we take that technology for granted. I am sure there are some educators out there that remember the wonderful mimeograph machines. I am not of that era but I have heard tons of talk about them. I was once in a conversation with another teacher who was part of the mimeograph era where the district had ordered pallets of the duplicator fluid because it went on such a good sale that they wanted to take advantage of the savings. The very next school year the first Xerox machine was released and the mimeograph was obsolete. Now that fluid is useless and I am sure by now has been disposed of or sits in a warehouse collecting dust.
There is lots of talk about what education should have taken advantage of when a particular edtech tool was around but is now obsolete as well as on the other side of things, education waiting for the newest tool to integrate into classrooms so they can get more bang for their buck. Note to the districts on the latter, you will ALWAYS be waiting. I don’t like to use the terms never and always because they are absolutes, but in this case it is fitting. Technology moves so fast with its changes and education does not move fast enough. The minute our district purchased classroom sets of iPads for their science departments, news of the iPad 2 was officially released, so instantly we were behind. Now if we had waited six more months and purchased them, rumors of the iPad 3 started rolling out. So no matter what there is always going to be something better on the horizon and we shouldn’t as educators stay behind in this technology world waiting for the best tool for our students. Use the best tool for your students that is available to you today. Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
Here is the “Did you know?” series. These videos are created by Scott McLeod (@mcleod) from the University of Kentucky CASTLE.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMsNct4X_GU]