Tech Talk: How should students think using technology?

I think everyone would agree that technology is and will continue to be an integral part of our children's daily lives.  This year mobile devices will outnumber the world population creating the largest global network ever imagined.  The question I ask myself every day is, "how will this proliferation of technology change how our children think and learn?"  What types of thinking will we see more of in this new century?  As I talked with our 3rd grade teachers we discussed how we can encourage more Global Thinking using  ePals  as a bridge between our classrooms to other schools around the world. In the second grade Mrs. Nichol's students engaged in Spatial Thinking  through experiencing  Sketchup, a gateway program to 3D animation and architectural design.  Mrs. Hemeyer's 4th graders used Systems Thinking to collaboratively write, direct, produce and act out many aspects of a television commercial using Photo Booth.  On Wednesday many of our teachers attended a workshop on how to manage information on  Microsoft's Sky Drive and  Apple's iCloud .  Cloud Thinking is not native to those who have become accustom to storing and sharing their information with hard drives, flash drives and email, but will be a prevalent way of thinking for our students.  As they grow up they will expect their information to be ubiquitous regardless of device or service.  Next week we will be starting our iPad program from PreK-3 to 1st Grade.  This "instant-on", touch technology places our students at the center of learning where a wide range of productive and creative applications (apps) promote self-directed discovery.  We are very excited to introduce this transformative technology to both lower and middle schools.  It is not the multitude of gadgets or software that will define this century's students, it is how they think through these instruments that will shape their learning. It is our mission to encourage technology fluency in every classroom so our children will be producers with, rather than consumers of technology. They will be leaders rather than followers with innovative and creative thinking?  Please post your comments to our new Blog, " It Is The Question That Drives Us".  What do you think?

Christian A. Rogers