🚀 go-pugleaf

As a teacher-librarian in an elementary school--I can confirm the sad
truth of this situation.  Yes--85% of schools may be wired, but there
are a variety of reasons why teachers do not incorporate the web in
teaching.

1.  As the article Tracy cited points out training has been inadequate,
and often entirely misses the point of technology---that is  simply that
through email,  lists and peer support as well as point of need training
we could have most teacher up in very little time and enthusiastic about
the resources available.

2.  Vendors have sold administrators (who are primarily accustomed to
dealing with "things} technology both hard and soft --- as huge amounts
of funds have become availabe--the result--instead of building from
ground upward---allowing teachers to grow networks based on need and use
-- many schools are highly equipped with aging technologies that are as
yet unused.

3.  Bureaucracies have promulgated the ideas that E-mail is dangerous
(you can be held legally accountable for anything you say on
it--therefore simply don't say anything on E-mail)--also bureaucracies
seem prone to concentrate power in the hands of a few rather than follow
the distributed metaphor of the network and allow sharing to take place
on a wide scale..

Having said that--how about some suggestions about how to circumvent
this situation in schools.

Karen McIntyre, Librarian
Ramirez & Guadalupe Elementary Schools
702 Ave. T -- Lubbock, TX  79401 806-766-2261

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"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.  Try to love the
questions
themselves.  Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given because
you
would not be able to live them.  And the point is to live everything.
Live the
questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually without noticing it,
live along
some distant day into the answers." -- Maria Rilke "Letters to a Young
Poet"