A Collection of Provocative Statements regarding Technology in our Schools

• PR1: It is the professional responsibilty of the administrative team of any school to gain a solid foundation of the skills and concepts associated with technology so that they can be leaders who walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

• PR2: The computer department of a school needs to see itself as primarily a service team -- with similarities to the school nurse and the maintenance department

• PR3: Policy decisions of content are best done by collaboration between the key technology leader and key administrator(s) ... see the "good to great" thesis used as a central principle at the 2007 Denver NAIS workshop

• PR4: Requiring faculty and staff to achieve certain levels of technology skill can be an interesting approach if there is administrative support ... see the plan from St. Andrew's School in Austin TX shared with permission from Barbara Jansen

• PR5: Without a proactive curriculum that builds computer skills for children at different age levels, what we tend to get is a vast majority of kids who are frequent computer users of social networks, game sites, music and entertainment sites and with very few skills with spreadsheets, graphics, blogs, wikis and typing

• PR6: It is the professional responsibility of all teachers at all age levels to include examples of media education and media awareness

• PR7: In the same way that most people are shocked that "swimming pools are more dangerous than guns," a good deal of internet safety is overblown, and the 1999 shock at students having their names and even faces on Web sites is perhaps now part of the Web 1.0 world of ancient history; similarly we should be moving forward with our posting of student projects on the Web as long as attribution has been practiced

• PR8: Laptops in classrooms and laptops in our schools present as many negatives as they do solve problems; find ways to move forward with laptop initiatives and "proceed at the pace at which we can succeed" is very important

• PR9: Learning to use a smartboard well or to put your curriculum onto Moodle takes much more time, instruction, support and practice than most people understand

Postulates and theorems that have been part of Summercore since 1985