I am the parent of 2 children, one in first grade and the other soon to enter Kindergarten. I recently registered my child for Kindergarten where I was handed a very helpful folder with lots of great information in it. It had pictures of children learning in various contexts and text touting the wonderful education Madison children receive. The curious thing is that in the center of the folder is a picture of children using computers that are most likely more than 10 years old. Across the picture in large print it says “Welcome to Madison’s Award Winning Schools!” Opposite the picture is a paragraph stating that there is a 4 to 1 computer ratio and that computers are integral to the K-12 instructional program. While I don’t doubt all this to be true, just how old is that computer that is “integral” to my child’s instructional program? Is my child getting the experiences that meet today’s standards for knowledge in this area? While this is just a picture, it caused me to look around my daughter’s school and to talk to a few teachers. What I learned was appalling.
Many teachers do their grades at home, not because of time, but because their classroom computer is so old and slow that it freezes on them or times out during an upload and they lose all of their data. I was stunned and confused. We as parents have been hearing about this new system that will allow us better access to seeing how our kids are doing in school and yet the teachers can’t even enter data from their classrooms. Should we not be embarrassed as a district? Can we really claim truth in the text filled folds of the aforementioned folder?
I know there are many academic standards which drive curriculum. These standards also include technology standards. In fact the federal government through Title II Part D Enhancing Education Through Technology Program allocates funds to the DPI for which school districts can then apply for grants with the specific goal to:
“improve student academic achievement through the use of technology in elementary and secondary schools. It is also designed to assist every student – regardless of race, ethnicity, income, geographical location, or disability – in becoming technologically literate by the end of eighth grade, and to encourage the effective integration of technology resources and systems with professional development and curriculum development to promote research-based instructional methods that can be widely replicated.”
Perhaps MMSD does apply for funds, but if so, where are they? Do they not make it to our elementary schools? Are they being used for something else? How are our students to become technologically literate by the end of 8th grade when the equipment they have to work on is so slow and out dated that rather than being productive it becomes an exercise in frustration? If it isn’t an exercise in frustration my suspicion is the programs that are being used and taught to our kids are yesterday’s technology rather than today’s, as that is the only technology that could perhaps run on their current machines. I’m sure students are learning some keyboarding skills and drawing tools which are important. But, are they getting access to working with digital photos, video, creating their own publications, Internet search skills for researching topics they are studying, learning about authors whose books they are reading, participating in Project Lemonade (http://projectlemonade.blogspot.com/) and many other educational ventures appropriate for elementary students? I’d be surprised if any of this could be done successfully on the equipment currently in the classroom and in many of the elementary computer lab classrooms throughout the district.
Madison won awards for educational excellence but that was long ago. It is now 2008, what are we doing to keep up? We can’t keep riding on our old fame. I’m glad to see so many new faces in the school board and perhaps with a new superintendent at the helm we will be in a better position to start “catching up” to where we should be if we are living up to the spirit of the language on our “welcome to MMSD” folders.
Thoughts of a concerned parent…
I think there are 2 different issues here. In early grades, teachers’ tech needs and kids’ tech needs are very different, IMHO.
Yes, I want an infrastructure that allows teachers to get their work done efficiently, but upgrading and *maintaining* a technical infrastructure is no small investment. In a time of tight budgets I’m not surprised this isn’t high on the list.
As for the kids, do elementary school kids really need another screen in their lives? I don’t think integrating technology into a curriculum is necessarily a bad thing, but it’s pretty low on the list of things I care about at this age. I want good teachers who genuinely nurture and care for their students. I want teachers who will help each kid grow and develop a life-long sense of curiosity. I want teachers to teach kids how to *think.*
And remember, how much technology was used in the classroom when Madison schools won all those awards?
While Alice makes some very important points, there are clearly some things that were left out of my original post.
Yes, teacher needs and student needs are very different but the same tools can meet both needs. Rather than focusing on the curricular materials that could be available digitally and save the district thousands of dollars, I will focus more on the students in these comments as they are our future employees and employers.
Teachers are required to teach to certain standards and learners are assessed on their ability to meet those standards and the level to which they can perform and are proficient in a variety of areas.
TEACHER STANDARD 11 (UW School of Ed. defining technology literacy): USES TECHNOLOGIES
Teachers appropriately incorporate new and proven technologies into instructional practice. They understand the major social, cultural, and economic issues surrounding their implementation.
Also a DPI task force developed the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards for Technology Education. These are the standards to be met or exceeded by WI students:
Elementary School (Grades K-5)
The technology education standards should be integrated throughout the elementary
curriculum. Teaching technology provides tremendous opportunity for students to apply knowledge through design and the use of materials and processes to solve real problems systematically and to gain new knowledge from what they have learned. Critical thinking, team work, research and development, experimentation, and testing help deliver the goals of the elementary curriculum and enrich the entire learning and teaching process. Elementary educators provide students with opportunities to develop their own perceptions of technology and its interrelationships with the world in which we live.
As for additional screens, my child attends a school that is nearly 50% below the poverty line. I know other schools in the district have even higher percentages. That means that many of those students don’t have access outside of school. Unfortunately their parents aren’t able to read this. But that doesn’t mean that those of us who have access should forget about those who don’t. We need to narrow the academic divide that in part is a result of an economic divide.
When we won awards as a district, I believe we had state of the art technology. However, that is the same technology that we have today and while it is better than nothing, it is not helping us meet today’s standards and expectations for what students should be able to do nor does it help stretch their minds.
I agree that it is still useful for teaching kindergarten children mouse skills. However the potential for cross-disciplinary integration, development of literacy and research skills, investigation into math, social studies and science is limited by the access our children have. Today’s technology helps students to explore, think, problem solve, have a voice that is heard, and follow their natural sense of curiosity to delve more deeply into that which interests them about the themes they are studying.
As for the infrastructure, one possible solution would be to look at MMSD in units perhaps based on the schools that feed into the high schools. If each year all schools needing it that feed into a given HS are upgraded on a four year rotation for example, that wouldn’t be as deep of a dig into the economic pot as trying to upgrade all schools at one time.
I’d love to hear/read other ideas for systematic approaches to improve what we have and sustain a plan for future so we don’t find ourselves in the same place in 10 more years.
A plan for updating seems appropriate and the four year rotation sounds logical if it means shuffling 4-year old computers to younger grades while providing newer ones at HS.
I don’t know how much “screen time” is healthy for kids K-5. And kids seem to pick up skills like mouse use and keyboarding faster than adults.
As for teachers, couldn’t they be given an allowance (say $1000) periodically so they could have a new computer with internet access at home? New computers are so cheap and this way teachers would be responsible for replacing the technology when they need/want to.
Nothing could be less important in the lives of kids even through high school than requiring computer literacy as part of the educational experience, and its a waste of tax payer money and resources at schools (like replacing most of your library with rows of computers).
Having been in the computer field for almost 40 years, I will tell you with absolute certainty that computers (and calculators) are no more than tools, like a hammer, or screw driver. They are useful even great, for repetitive tasks, but they are no substitute for intelligence.
Learning penmanship and even how to type was required to do reasonable job when one needed to write papers. But, what was truly important back in the 50’s and 60’s was having something to say. Except for lazy teachers who graded on penmanship and neatness, good teachers graded on content, vocabulary, sentence structure, grammar, logic and rhetoric.
That educrats who set educational standards have determined that computer literacy is a top priority merely proves how totally clueless these folks are — for them, computer literacy is a panacea or excuse for failing to teach content and academic skills.
The bottom line is any truly educated person can learn to *use* a computer at their leisure, if such knowledge is actually needed. And their use can be very beneficial in some professions.
However, learning to actually program a computer, not merely to use one, can be very important, pedagogically, even for those with a “liberal arts” mindset. Properly taught, programming skills are just as fundamental as, and closely related to, essay writing in English and problem solving in mathematics. The habits of mind that are implicated by a properly designed education requires one to learn to analyze a problem statement; express its essence, abstractly and with examples; formulate statements and comments in a precise language; evaluate and revise these activities in light of checks and tests; and pay attention to details. Mental sloppiness and unnecessary complexity is a guarantee of failure — computers cannot be fooled.
Such an approach, where the emphasis is on the building of good habits of mind, is lacking — computer scientists have been lamenting for years the poor quality of computer science curricula at the university level. Its likely that our public schools would be far worse in that regard.
Larry, while I appreciate were you are coming from, I cannot agree with a lot of your statements.
As a parent of three children in elementary and pre-school age two of whom are visually impaired, I have to say that technology is in fact a tool like you say, but I believe that what Lauren is alluding to is the fact that as a tool computers can be integrated in the day-to-day curriculum.
As a civilization we used to pass information from one generation to the next using the oral tradition. Then when writing came of age in the different cultures we started teaching using a written tradition that helped us keep that knowledge sealed for future generations so that we could learn from their history and try to avoid their mistakes. The next evolution of that teaching tradition would be through the use of multimedia.
We have come to a point where technology is ubiquitous except in our classrooms. My children need to be learning Braille, which is one extra skill that they will have, to aid them in their educational journey, but if it wasn’t for technology and computers they would not be able to appreciate the world that surrounds them in the same way a fully sighted person might. They will have access to accessibility devices and computers, but those computers and devices will be out of date and that is just a small portion of what they will need.
In a globalized society our children can, through the use of computers, communicate with other children of other parts of the world instantaneously. They can exchange ideas, make videos about their day at a museum, write papers that could get peer-reviewed thus learning the value of collaboration and specially the value of international collaboration.
I am also a computer professional, and I have been programming computers since I was 9 years old on a Sinclair Spectrum ZX80. Now I continue to program computers but this time it is for the government and I believe that what I do is making a difference in our state and for our constituents.
I understand the reluctance to have more technology, but for a lot of children that is the only exposure to technology they will have.
As Lauren mentions, there is a great amount of children and families that do not have the facilities that we may have regarding access to computers and technology, and those children would be the ones that would benefit the most by having that exposure throughout their educational journey. If we don’t expose them to it in school the educational divide between those that have access to the technology and those who don’t will be one that continues to get larger.
Larry, I really like the comment you make regarding programming, and how it teaches critical thinking, logic and other analytical skills. In my mind this is just one of many approaches to including technology and computers in the classroom. Technology and computers in a classroom don’t mean anything unless they are used in context and the best way to do this is integrating them into every subject, and not just having it as a separate class.
We are told at our jobs over an over again to be creative and think outside the box. That we need to bring new ideas to the table to help solve both old and new challenges. I believe that integrating technology in the curriculum is one of those ideas that will help our children become the productive members of society we need them to be.
Sorry about the rant, but I really feel very strongly about this subject.
Thank you,
It’s one thing to advocate for computers for every student, and quite another to advocate for accommodations for kids with particular needs. That is where Jose seems to fail in his analysis. Just because some kids need wheelchairs doesn’t mean all kids have to have one.
Yes, it’s possible to integrate computers into the day-to-day curriculum but that is precisely what is a waste of time — pedagogically unsound and wasteful of time and resources best spent on substantive content and skills.
“In a globalized society our children can, through the use of computers, communicate with other children of other parts of the world instantaneously. They can exchange ideas, make videos about their day at a museum, write papers that could get peer-reviewed thus learning the value of collaboration and specially the value of international collaboration.” Sounds so grandiose and liberating. But, one has to have ideas to communicate, and one needs to actually know something in order for it to be peer-reviewed, and you have to know how to write and research for collaboration to be more than idle chitchat.
Idle chitchat and small talk is not unimportant — it has an important place in general communication. But that is not what the focus of schools need to be.
None of these things have anything to do with computers. And television, audio-visual equipment and other technologies were pushed on schools in the 60’s and 70’s and later using the same tired arguments.
The best audio-visual equipment available for learning is the book, the pen, the paper, the blackboard, and a great teacher’s voice for expressing ideas, and ears for listening.
I disagree with you Larry. It is really important for M.S. and H.S. students to learn how to do literature searches on the internet. They need to learn how to distinguish between a good reference and nonsense that is posted on Wikipedia. You can argue that these things can be learned in a library but I have found that because I don’t know that much about the internet (I do use it a lot in my work but there is so much there to know), I need a librarian (trained in this type of search) to help me do literature searches.
As for learning the keyboard, software and blogging, E-mail etc. I do agree with you. Those things are learned very quickly by kids. They don’t need to do that in class at a young age.
I guess I’m for the middle ground. Kids need to be taught some things to enhance their ability to access information. They need to be taught to not be afraid (I haven’t seen this with kids) of computers but they don’t need a new computer at the lower grades unless they have special needs.
Hi Larry,
I take exception to your comments. I was just giving an example of a type of student that benefits from technology, as well as other adaptations. My kids benefit from having a high contrast in their reading materials, are you saying that not all kids with or without visual impairments would benefit from high contrast?
A wheelchair does not enable any learning, so your example fails to illustrate your point.
Same as my kids benefit from having a type of technology integrated into their day-to-day curriculum, so would all other students.
You say “Sounds so grandiose and liberating. But, one has to have ideas to communicate, and one needs to actually know something in order for it to be peer-reviewed, and you have to know how to write and research for collaboration to be more than idle chitchat.” Are you saying that our kids don’t have valuable ideas to communicate? If that is so I seriously hope that you talk more with your children. Just because you don’t perceive their ideas as intelligent does not mean that they cannot communicate. Just because you think that our children don’t know anything does not make it so. Our children are having now experiences that we never had access to and it is because of access to technology. When you were in school could you have done a video report before you were able to write and then be able to send that report to other students across the globe where they may not have access to some of the things we have here in the U.S.? I think not.
Belittling the communication that our children could establish with children of other states or countries borderlines irresponsibility. The reason to most of our woes today is mostly linked to a lack of understanding of others and an intolerance for the unknown.
It seems from your comments that you have not considered the fact that in today’s society computer literacy is just as important as any other kind of literacy.
With all of your years of experience, you fail to see how technology can be used as a pedagogically sound tool. I’m not an educator and I don’t pretend to be one, but I our teachers and administrators, as experts, should be the judges of how technology can be integrated in their curriculum so that ALL children have access to it, and not just the few of us that may have access to one or more computers at home.
You are willing to forget about those kids without means to afford technology and prevent them from having the opportunity to reach the same levels of education and learning as the rest of us that are a little more fortunate.
I guess my point is that just because they are children does not mean that they don’t have ideas worth sharing. One of the skills that 1st graders learn about is retelling (listening, reading or experiencing something and then telling someone about it). This is a skill that they must learn, but just as they could tell their teacher, they could also learn how to record it on the computer and place it on a website designed for other children to see them telling the story, etc. The sky is the limit.
If we want our children to regard computers as something more than toys, we need to teach them how they can be used as tools, and do that as early in their education as possible.
Thanks again for taking the time to read my post.
I don’t see anything special about a “literature search” on the internet, nor do I see anything distinguishing between a good reference and nonsense unique to computer technology. These are truly not computer skills we’re talking about.
There are undoubtedly special sources for the many different specialities. The issues here have nothing to do with whether the sources are on the internet or not — the same criteria apply: primary or secondary sources; indexes to primary or secondary sources; how to read the literature; peer-reviewed or advocacy; respected authorities or not; bibliographic citations; habit of checking the references, etc.
Of course, middle school and high school students are less likely, at first, to approach the primary sources for many areas so teachers and librarians should know the reliable secondary sources that students can use. Again, this is not something unique to internet searches.
Larry,
You seem to have a narrow view of what computers are used for. The world I live in relies on materials that I can’t easily get in printed form. I think this is becoming more common. If you know what you are doing it saves a lot of time.
I worked with a graduate student who never went to his college library. He used online sources. He knew where to go and how to do this quickly. I think someone trying to find information on the internet for the first time would be stumped about where to start.
While reading, writing and research skills haven’t changed, the world has and getting around in it requires computer skills that don’t include programing. These are tools that kids need to learn about and practice. The way computers are used now is so different from when I first started using one. Jose talked about “computer literacy” and I think he has hit on an important point.
Finally, I like Jose’s comment about communicating with other cultures: “….The reason for most of our woes today is mostly linked to a lack of understanding of others and an intolerance for the unknown.”
So, getting back to the original post, I think the district should some spend money upgrading computers every year and I’m guessing they probably do.
I’m glad to see this thread has sparked so many comments. It clearly has hit a passionate note for many of us. As I read with interest and agree with much of what Laura and Jose say, I want to delve a little deeper into the teaching aspects.
I agree in seeing technology as a classroom tool, much like an overhead projector, which is invaluable to a teacher and found in at least 98% of today’s classrooms (not so when I was a child–since they didn’t need them then, does that imply they don’t need them now?). These projectors may or may not be used daily but when they are useful you can be assured that the teacher will take advantage of them because they are there. Remember the opaque projector that was used to show flat materials that weren’t on a transparency or couldn’t be legally copied to one. Now there are document cameras where a small 3D object can be blown up on a screen for the whole class to see in detail. I don’t expect to see one of those in every classroom but having access to one when it would be useful is yet another tool the teachers could have at their disposal.
As for computers, again, perhaps they don’t need them every day but when you just look at the list of ideas this discussion has brought forward for their use, and we are only a small group of people who aren’t in the classroom, just think what a classroom teacher could come up with. I hope you didn’t think I was implying in my original post a computer for each student, as I wasn’t. A lab can handle that. But a computer or two per classroom that is sufficiently up to date that it can be integrated by a teacher in the ways that meet the needs of the students, in ways that allow them to demonstrate their knowledge of the material they are studying can be as invaluable as an overhead project.
I also agree whole heartedly with the cultural sharing concept. But for those who like to live closer to home, what about the fact that these same projects that are student produced, assessable by the teacher, would also be available for the community, the parents of those students who are working during the day and don’t know all the details of what our children are learning on a regular basis. We get small glimpses and a quarterly progress report. How proud would your child be if they could see from home a slide show of digital pictures taken over the course of several school days where they were able to narrate with recorded voice what they learned and documented about caterpillars becoming butterflies? (Orally narrated b/c in K-1 they don’t have enough written literacy skills to tell the story as completely as if they use their voices.) That’s just one example of the many things that I know they are learning in school. My child isn’t one to give me a play by play of her day no matter how many different ways I try to ask. But if she has the opportunity to actually show me, not just tell me, all of what she knows, I can visualize the grin of pride on her shy little face (and the one on my face for the pride I would have in her for what she knows and can do).
“Belittling the communication that our children could establish with children of other states or countries borderlines irresponsibility. The reason to most of our woes today is mostly linked to a lack of understanding of others and an intolerance for the unknown.”
Lack of understanding and intolerance is due to lack of education, not communication. WWI and WWII, and all wars since are caused by lack of character of countries leaders, and flock of sheep who, regardless of official educational level simply decide not to think. Facts — people! Name any current event (say Iraq War for example, or collapse of the housing market, or coming recession) that was caused by lack of communication, or lack of access to computers by the decision makers. Rumors and lies travel more widely and are repeated more often over the internet than any communication media invented thus far.
The comments most are making seem to be ignoring facts right under your nose. You are using the word “communication” as though it were a positive term, rather than neutral. So, for what purposes do we truly communicate. Communication is used for lying, spreading rumors, threats. Really, what conflicts in your families or in our schools are due to “lack” of communication. Really, we just witnessed probably the most filthy Wisconsin Supreme Court race in memory, and it wasn’t because of the lack of communication — it was because of massive communication of the worst sort. Computers and the internet played their role here.
Nice that you all, in your seemingly myopic world view, conveniently forget some recent uses of the internet and computers.
“DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. – Megan Meier thought she had made a new friend in cyberspace when a cute teenage boy named Josh contacted her on MySpace and began exchanging messages with her. Megan, a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder, corresponded with Josh for more than a month before he abruptly ended their friendship, telling her he had heard she was cruel. The next day Megan committed suicide. Her family learned later that Josh never actually existed; he was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of Megan’s.”
Can anyone say “internet child porn”? The Internet has been very effective communication medium for those interested in this topic.
How about identity theft? Internet communication is the largest mechanism used for this practice.
Please, you all need to get over being star-struck by computers, and the “oh,wow” of slide shows of digital pictures.
Recently (in the last 5 years) some members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, lamented the decreasing lack of quality and expanding length of appellate briefs (sorry, I have not be able to find the reference — I guess I could if my internet search skills were better : >). With cut-and-paste and fancy word processors, whole sections of prior opinions can and are lifted and placed verbatim into new writings (of course, with appropriate legal citations). But, according to these members, these attorneys were failing to synthesize the material and opinions, and in many cases, the placing wholly irrelevant material before the court. Computer skills were made a substitute for thinking and good lawyering.
Criticisms of the decision making involving the Shuttle Columbia catastrophe was caused in part by use of PowerPoint slide presentations and the shallowness which such presentations encourage. From Edward Tufte at http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB&topic_id=1
“To help NASA officials assess the threat, Boeing Corporation engineers quickly prepared 3 reports, a total of 28 PowerPoint slides, dealing with the debris impact. These reports provided mixed readings of the threat to the Columbia; the lower-level bullets often mentioned doubts and uncertainties, but the highlighted executive summaries and big-bullet conclusions were quite optimistic. Convinced that the reports indicated no problem rather than uncertain knowledge, high-level NASA officials decided that the Columbia was safe… Several NASA engineers had hoped that the military would photograph the Columbia…, which would have easily detected the damage, but even that check-up was thought unnecessary given the optimism of the 3 Boeing reports. And so the Columbia orbited for nearly 2 weeks with a big undetected hole in its wing.”
Just to be very clear, each of the above cases constitute using computers and the internet for communication. To emphasize, in the case of NASA and lawyering, these folks are highly educated, likely computer savvy, and yet are enamored by something akin to a toy, which blinds them to computer and software limitations and the need to be truly educated and critical thinkers. They are no substitute for non-computer related intelligence.
Please, don’t argue “See, kids need to be educated in depth on the use of computers so they don’t make the same mistakes.” No truly educated person is enamored by new toys and media, and new technologies.
Computer and software change nothing but to make complete idiots out of those who should (and must) know better. I have very strong doubts whether parents, or principals or teachers, or administrators have the knowledge or capacity to place computers and software, or any other sexy technology into their appropriate place, and, instead, concentrate on the mental ability to think and evaluate critically.
One more chit in my argument. Here, is a link regarding the recent April 2008 fight at Toki http://www.channel3000.com/education/15973284/detail.html
Quoting from the article:
At Toki Middle School, Tai Woods is the West Side coordinator for Girls, Incorporated, an after-school program that helps teach teen girls everything from leadership development to fitness and health.
Woods said that girls there tell her about the fighting and other conflicts. Woods said that many of the conflicts start online with sites like Facebook, MySpace.com and YouTube.
“We need to pay more attention to how we can deal with the technology end of it, because that’s what age we’re in, and I think this is something new that we’ve never had to deal with before,” Woods said. “So, I think we need to come up with some type of solution for that, because I think that’s where most of this is getting instigated.”
The girls involved here did seem to have been making use of computers for communication — and notice how troubles have melted away into light and bliss?
Kids are really quite comfortable with computers — it’s the adults who are enamored and unrealistic. Perhaps the “technology gap” is a figment of somebody’s imagination? — perhaps a somebody who wants to sell the schools more computers, and software, training, and new required courses — instead of concentrating on the fundamentals.
Does anyone know the district’s schedule for updating classroom/library computers? It might be that principals and staff need to request new equipement.
Laura, good question. I don’ t know and I hope that someone from MMSD answers.
Larry, wow. You’ve kind of left the original point that I was trying to make but only solidified the reasoning.
I think we can all agree that technology will be with us for a long time. While you have cited many ways in which computer technology is “dangerous” I’m sure I could cite at least as many ways in which it is helpful.
I think the point is, since technology and computers in particular aren’t going way, the schools as well as parents have an obligation to teach children not how to use computers but rather technology literacy. In a world where computers are used to communicate incorrect information as much as accurate information, students will need to learn how to discern what is accurate and what is not. The original point wasn’t using computers for computer sake but for information and technology literacy.
With proper education in that area, Megan would perhaps have made different choices about trusting or not trusting “Josh.” That was not a problem of communication but rather proper education.
Ignoring the fact that this type of information or these encounters are out there in no way prepares or educates our children to make smart choices when faced with communication of this nature.
While technology can be used as weapons it can also be used as tools for learning. Information literacy and technology literacy are the skills our children will need and use in order to be successful in their lives as technology isn’t going away.
“With proper education in that area, Megan would perhaps have made different choices about trusting or not trusting “Josh.” That was not a problem of communication but rather proper education. With proper education in that area, Megan would perhaps have made different choices about trusting or not trusting “Josh.” That was not a problem of communication but rather proper education.”
Ah. I almost thought we had agreement but clearly that is not the case.
“[C]ommunication of this nature”, that is via computer, is in no way relevant to Megan’s problem and doesn’t imply that she lacked special computer literacy skills that were unfortunately neglected. “[P]roper education” was indeed lacking (as it would be for any child her age).
But, I would contend that, for example, a George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison in today’s world would have to learn nothing new in order to communicate among themselves, for they were educated. The few triflings they would need to learn to use today’s technologies would be learned in a few hours.
It is in education and learning of substantive areas they excelled, and that’s where the schools need to focus, almost exclusively.
“technology will be with us for a long time”
Definition: Technology is that new stuff that wasn’t readily available when we were growing up.
So, of course, technology will be with us for a long time — but it won’t be the current technology. It will be something that our children or their children will invent — that might come long after we pass. It may change everything.
But, for an educated person, this new technology will be a mere trifling that can be acquired after a few hours of effort. A new technology is never a barrier for those with substantive knowledge.
“Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal. ” Albert Einstein.