This reading selection focused on podcasts, wikis, and blogs as a means of increasing communication throughout a school system and the surrounding community.  I was really interested in the scenario where the English teacher was sharing podcasts with parents so that they would hear her read science fiction stories to their children.  I think it would be really neat to record sessions of my course or even have my students record their thoughts or concerns and post them on a class website.  I love the idea of informing parents about class discussions and topics.  When I was in high school my younger brother and I would often reenact class discussions for our parents at the dinner table.  We were fourtunate enough to have family dinners every night but sadly, this is not a common trend for many families.  Posting recorded podcasts and making them available for parents is a great way to continue the process of informing the parents on class topics.  I really like the idea of the students posting their thoughts because this allows their reflections, concerns, and thoughts to be directly heard by others.  I believe that this experience would enhance the critical thinking skills of the students and truly engage them. 

I think one of the biggest benefits of this scenario was the inclusion of everyone.  Administrators, parents, other faculty members, board members, and students were all engaged in a multi-faceted way in this scenario.  I was especially impressed with the amount of increased support and communication between all of the teachers within this school system.  I think that teaming up on concepts and subject matters across disciplines builds legitimacy for the topics in the minds of the students.  I often benefit during semesters where my classes all seem to align in subject matter.  For example, I might be taking a professional selling courses, an integrated marketing course, and business management course which would all cover interpersonal skills and communication.  This would make the concept clearer for me and studying for tests easier as the concept was the same across disciplines.  If we could do this for high school students, I think we would reinforce their knowledge by providing them with more breadth and depth of knowledge on specific tested concepts. 

Perhaps a weakness of this scenario is the amount of additional time it would require to manage the multi technical aspects of this environment.  Instructors would not be able to manage these sites during class time because it would take away from their students.  They must screen the content that is being posted to make sure that the students are learning and posting appropriate content which could become tedious.  Also, we experienced difficulties with wiki’s in our class as multiple students tried to simultaneously edit the same post.  If multiple students or administrators were trying to accomplish this task and ran into the challenges that we faced, they might become reluctant to continue with the process.

Chapter nine focuses on the evolution of schools towards the future.  This chapter mentions the importance of making software students use at school available for students at home.  This would allow students to continue their work once they left school and a bigger opportunity to personalize their work as they familiarize themselves with different types of technology and the services those programs can do.  The chapter also mentioned the importance of Internet speed.  Many households don’t have broadband Internet connection and students in these households do not have the same advantages as those who can use the Internet quickly and efficiently from the benefit of a fast connection.  It is discussed that the use of a telephone in the 1930’s was viewed as an essential commodity in American life.  It’s rather astonishing that the Internet is not viewed in a similar light and provided to underprivileged citizens as telephone service is. 

One important thing mentioned in the text concerning education was the sheer vastness of resources available on the Internet.  The chapter mentioned a vision of the future in which teachers could easily recommend software programs, lessons, units, and other resources to each other openly, freely, and easily.  One of the most frustrating things with the Internet is the sheer vastness of it’s size.  There are many wonderful resources available for educators presently but where to find them is another obstacle and can be incredibly frustrating.  How is one suppose to know about a wonderful resource if they don’t know that it exists?  I think it is extremely important that changes be made to assist educators in finding valid information and resources to provide their students so that the instructor’s time can be used more efficiently and the students can be exposed to a variety of learning. 

The text also mentioned the importance of assistive technologies to improve the learning process for students.   These programs would pay attention to how students learned and make recommendations to assist them based upon their preferences and learning style.  As technology, laws, and procedures constantly change, perhaps this sort of technology is one that would benefit multiple users outside of the school.  If this sort of a program were to be adapted for corporations, the training process could become much easier and more cost efficient for companies.  One of the most frustrating aspects of training, is loosing employees after they have completed the training process and have been paid to do so.  If there were a way to reduce employee turnover and save money on the training process by catering the experience to the needs of the learner I think that this would be a highly desirable product.

Chapter eight discusses the multiple technological problems that teachers and their schools are faced with.  These problems might be a result of technology growing at the speed of light or as commonplace as troubles with funding and financially supporting technology systems.  The authors specifically targeted the issue of the increase in students who do not speak English as their primary language.  As students who fit this description increase, the opportunity to assist them linguistically increases as technology improves.  The key to successfully using technology to assist these students, is to ensure that the instructors are using proper assessment.  The students must be engaged in a dialog that is useful and meaningful to them so that they can make connections and gain a deeper understanding of the English language. 

The authors also mentioned assistive technology.  I feel that assistive technology is a field that grows exceedingly fast.  When I was first interested in becoming a teacher, I observed a classroom with a student with special needs using an electronic lap keyboard.  The student would type assignments with the keyboard due to poor hand writing or poor pencil coordination.  The keyboard would save the student’s input and either print it or transfer the information to a computer.  Now this former assisstive technology would seem clunky, awkward, and out of date.  Keyboards have evolved and decreased significantly in size.  As a future educator, it will be important to stay informed in regards to assistive technology applications that may help students who are struggling in my courses.

The book also mentioned the use of electronic portfolios.  It seems as though electronic portfolios are all the rage for education majors but perhaps their popularity needs to be felt in every discipline.  These tools would forever serve students as they transition from school to employment opportunities.  Paper and contact information can be lost or damaged.  However, electronic information can be saved to a website or Internet file space and kept forever.  The developmental experiences of high school students should be photographed and summarized electronically to assist the students in the future.  I think any employer would be impressed with a student who could navigate to their resources online and manipulate the web in a way that displayed their digital talents.