T he
Change
A gents
Technology is empowering 21st century
students in four key ways.
Cheryl Lemke and Ed Coughlin
The timing is right. Just as the funding for education in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has opened a window of opportunity for the K– 12 community to reinvent itself, Web 2.0 tools are offering
strikingly different, more participatory
and interactive ways for people to learn.
To date, U.S. elementary and
secondary schools have marginalized
technology. Many school districts still
restrict their students’ use of such Web
2.0 tools as social networking sites,
chat rooms, blogs, wikis, visual media,
instant messaging and texting, virtual
worlds, and interactive games (Lemke,
Coughlin, Garcia, Reifsneider, & Baas,
2009).
Instead of requiring our students to
check their Web 2.0 technologies at the
schoolhouse door, we should teach
them how to use these tools for
learning. Our students need such guidance. Although we often picture them as
technology experts—engaging in
multiple texting or instant messaging
conversations while listening to music
on i Tunes and browsing the Web—most
children and youth don’t know how to
use technology as informed consumers,
intelligent learners, creative producers,
and effective communicators (Kaiser
Family Foundation, 2006).
As educators, we should be using
technology as a critical design factor, in
combination with research on how
people best learn, to establish new and
different environments for student-centered learning. Here are four key
ways that technology is changing the
nature of learning in the 21st century.
Change Agent 1:
Democratization of Knowledge
The Internet has become a treasure
trove for content related to the academic
curriculum, providing learners with free
access to thousands of valuable courses,
information sources, and experts.
Elementary and secondary students are
