Thanks for sharing that interview with Darren Kuropatwa. I found one of his statements regarding teaching with tech tools quite fascinating. He said, " When you have a new tool, you need a new metaphor." He illustrated that idea by showing that although a whiteboard looks like a blackboard, it deserves a new metaphor because the whiteboard is really a 2-way window in the classroom.

Dr. Burgos

Hi Maryanne. I'm Darren. Thanks for the feedback. Since this conversation I had with Carly I'm finding this notion of looking for new metaphors a powerful one. It keeps coming up.

I agree that new technology is only useful if you use it effectively. We do need a new metaphor with the new tools. New tools are useless if they are not used to do different things. Doing different things with something like a SMART board will give both the students and the teacher an opportunity to participate in the learning interactively rather than just taking notes. Students can create things on the board that can be saved and referred to at a later time. Teachers can use the SMART board to take anything from the internet and immediately show it to the students. This makes bringing new content to the students easier. Students are exposed to technology outside of school, so to get them interested in learning within the school, we must bring technology to them.