This Message Center is organized and operated by David Vitale Comments and reflection on Laptop Institute presentation

David Warlick is the founder of the Landmark Project for Schools and presented his views at the Laptop Institute's annual conference in Memphis, TN.  Some of Mr. Warlick's points and conclusions included:

• We need to no longer teach integration of technology, but maintain a focus on literacy (3 Rs).  This is not to be interpreted as an indictment of technology, but that technology is necessary for helping students to "employ" information to accomplish goals and solve problems. 
• Redefine what it means to become literate and technology will come along because it's so much part of the information environment in which we all live today.
• Writing does not equate with a steady diet of essays and more essays.  It means focusing on helping students to "communicate compellingly". Examples include digital media like weblogs, multi-media, audio, video, wikis, etc.
• In support of this idea, Mr. Warlick's Landmark Project is dedicated to ever changing nature of information.  The following is an excerpt from the site's description...

This Web site is dedicated to the idea that the very nature of information is changing, practically before our eyes. It is changing in what it looks like, where we find it, what we look at to view it, what we can do with it, and how we communicate it. Here you will find information and tools designed to help us redefine literacy for the 21st Century.

In addition to the 3 Rs, it was mentioned that we also must help students to become visually literate to help add value to the information around them.  Of course, accuracy and reliability of information is highly important.  Mr. Warlick shared the Martin Luther King, Jr. site that Bob Logan has shared with WUSD teachers.  Further investigation reveals that the site, martinlutherking.org, is operated by a white supremacy group.  

A great point made by Mr. Warlick was that essays are read by very few people, whereas multimedia presentations can be shared and viewed/heard by tens or hundreds of people.  Leveraging the power of technology as writers means that we can expand both our audience (and purpose for writing) as well as the source of feedback for the work that we do. 

Much of what was covered in the address was consistent with what I've seen/heard from other reformers who have written about or discussed the impact of 21st century tools on teaching and learning.  The presentation was very engaging. 

posted July 17, 2006 | comments « back to Message Center home

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