• Technology should be used thoughtfully and carefully.
• Technology should be available to all students in a school building.
• Students have a right to computer access no matter what their economic status.
• Teacher training is of the utmost importance.
• If technology is used correctly students teach themselves.
• Other forms of learning are of equal importance and should always be used.
• Technology experts need to be available to keep computers functioning.

While we need the key to technology we have to be very much aware of how technology can be abused and overused, so that we don't accept it blindly. 

      *As important as infrastructure is, how teachers and students use the technologies available to them is even more imortant. . . .The picture that emerges reveals computers are predominately used as electronic workbooks for basic skills remediation rather than being used to stimulate student creativity, to solve problems, to record and manipulate data, or to create multimedia presentations that summarize what students have learned. 

*"Bridging the Digital Divide in Our Schools -Achieving Technology Equity for All Students," by Laura Chris Green

The combination of doing serious thinking and trying to learn the technology is actually what we want students to do. It would be very helpful to have students practice technology outside the classroom as well utilize it in their class work. 
     Christ the King High School has a technology class that all students take for one term.  Then they know the basics of several programs and the subject teachers can then use their basic skills to do projects.  I like this model.  Although I don't see how my school will do this practically, I know that I have to plan on teaching students skills in the software as well as the composing skills and other work. 

The PBS  video on the digital divide showed the contrast in the issues. If you have scarce resources then you should not put them into computers perhaps. Not only are they expensive to begin with but the upkeep and teacher training can make the costs beyond most school districts means. 
     The tape showed paint peeling and and other neglected areas in a school so kids could sit bleary-eyed in front of a computer using rather inadequate software.   There are  choices that have to be made in the name of keeping children from being deprived of computer technology  but then the misuse of technology becomes a problem as well. 

     The answer to this dilemma is to not have to make choices with scarce resources but to fund schools better or more adequately- so the school building is maintained, the teachers are trained, there is library, sports facilities, art programs, teams and computers too. 

     Minority and poor children deserve the same resources as well-off children otherwise they will suffer from a lack of computer literacy.

There needs to be instruction for teachers on how to use technology effectively. Technology can be interwoven into a curriculum that includes many other "traditional" activities. Teachers need to see how this can be done as well as learn how to use the technology themselves. 

For many teachers, the message is that technology is frustrating and difficult to infuse successfully into their lessons.   They need to learn to "duplicate" successful learning strategies using technology and this involves extensive teacher-training.

      No longer is lecturing students considering an effective model of teaching.   The computer technology provides students with the opportunity to develop strategies of "teaching" themselves. 

Technology is just one tool to help students learn and human contact and hands-on experiences are involved in the other ways students learn. Technology can be incorporated with other experiences using the project model Wilhelm talks about and which we are doing ourselves in this "Inquiry with Technology." 

There is stress for teachers when the technology doesn't work. A simple misspelling of a name can cause a student to be unable to log in to their computer.   So much can go wrong and you have to be prepared.  I find this is especially true with a new group in the beginning. But later on when things go wrong there is less stress, and often the class themselves has learned how to deal with the problems. Also, I think the model of a technology teacher working in the room with the subject teacher is probably a good idea especially when classes of students start working in a computer lab for the first time.