Here is a great post from a teacher from down under who spent time in Canada. I agree with her. What takes me aback is when all the tech gurus in their ivory towers argue classroom teachers are the Luddites. I don’t make the rules. I just have to be the bad cop in the classroom enforcing nonsense rules.

elketeaches's avatarelketeaches

If you’ve been following my blog or know me personally, you probably have figured out that I am an advocate of the use of ICTs, especially in schools.  I believe that schools should have NO blocks to the Internet.  Here are a few advantages of unblocking the Internet at school:

  1. teachable moments – unblocking will allow for educating our young citizens on digital citizenry and online ethics – let’s face it, a good majority of them are online outside of school anyway.  Shouldn’t we be authenticating that experience at school? YES!  Shouldn’t we be taking the opportunity to show them great ways to use ICTs for education, social networking etc?  YES!
  2. authenticity – a school with lots of blocked sites shows students that there is a lack of trust and a very narrow minded view of Internet use at the school.  Imagine the average (high school) student who has access to the…

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About ivonprefontaine

In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms. I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders. I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs. I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry. I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry. I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope, nonviolence and its anticipatory relationship with the future, as essential elements to teaching and learning. Academic publications can be found at Ivon Gile Prefontaine on ResearchGate

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