“And then we had to go through immigration. And [my father's sister] Cassie said, when we get there, just leave the kids loose, don’t be holding them. The kids’ll start getting in trouble and they’ll put you through fast.”

Back on topic: in my area (suburban Washington DC), I think there’s sometimes a reluctance on the part of the administration as well. We have large, diverse school districts with many highly vocal groups that see themselves as stakeholders.

In case anyone missed it, the penguin image links to the original on Flickr. Thanks belong to Ambra Galassi, the photographer, who posted it with a CC license. I was just smart enough to recognize it as a good fit for this article. (Bonus points if they found the alt text.)

My students stumbled upon your blog while google’ing’ themselves, and apparently me, for a family history project.

In my opinion there are three factors that restrain teachers from jumping into a technologically enhanced environment:
1. lack of funding for hardware (tools cost $)
2. lack of support and professional development (no one should have to swim alone for the first time)
3. fear of justifying the effective use of technology in the classroom

Until teachers are given the support that they need, they won’t be willing to improve their students learning with a technologically enhanced environment.

It’s my sincere pleasure to expose the pros and cons of the use of technology in my classroom to educate and prepare my students to be independent, well rounded thinkers. My goal is to have my students decide what is right or wrong for themselves (in school and out) and to be able to justify their own use of social networking for different purposes.

Thanks for the laugh! We, my students and I, really liked the picture of the penguin with the digital backpack. They were quick to identify the student in the room with the longest arms and liken him to the penguin. They were also sure that I must have created the backpack since it had duct tape on it.