I found a link on Lucy Grey's @elemenous twitter feed (don't even know if I'm saying that right)that discussed a very innovative school in Hong Kong. With the technology in China being so advance it came as no shock to me that they would be on the cutting edge, but I never thought about ways that their students are incorporting it in school. The students in the classes used ipod touches in the class to do constant revisions on their work and future work on their languages and it was stated that "technology allows the school to extend learning opportunities beyond the school day and the school term". They also use lots of audio and visual components to work on their English comphrension. This makes perfect sense to me and I wonder how many ELL (English language learner) courses in our public schools actually take advantage of technology to work with students or do they stick with the books?
The most interesting part of the article was the fact that even though technology is impressive in their country, there was still a struggle to embrace it in the school. The principal discussed how the move away from a more "passive, traditional" approach to education was surpassed by the need to prepare students to function in the world of today and tomorrow. This mindset switch is difficult in many schools in the city due to the lack of funds and resources to build a respectable technological presence in a school. I also think that many of the adults fear of technology is another reason that more of it isn't used in the schools, which is incredibly sad, because the children miss out on more info than one teacher could ever teach them.
http://ow.ly/5tVhT
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