Why Learn With

Technology?

What kinds of skills do students need?

Lower income students use computers more often for repetitive practice,

whereas higher-income students use computers more often for more

sophisticated intellectually complex applicationsHenry Jay Becker “Who’s Wired and Who’s Not:

Children’s Access to and Use of Computer Technology” Children and Computer

Technology, Vol. 10, No. 2 Fall/Winter, 2000

Old and New Skills:

• Communicating• Collaborating

• Judging

• Knowing

New 21st Century skill:

Interpreting images and sounds in historical, scientific, aesthetic or

imaginative contexts

Old 21st Century skill:

Using images, sounds and animation effects as raw material for communication purposes

• Communicating

New 21st Century skill:

Taking responsibility for differentiated roles and tasks

Old 21st Century skill:

Expanding the pool of collaborators to include people outside the classroom

• Collaborating

New 21st Century skill:

Learning coherent standards to evaluate information

Old 21st Century skill:

Applying different criteria to evaluate multiple sources of information produced for

different purposes

• Judging

New 21st Century skill:

Learning to understand a predefined canon in various disciplines via textbooks

Old 21st Century skill:

Learning how to construct knowledge from a fluid set of “building blocks” available online

• Knowing

Equity?