Banning It Won't Stop It

This week one of our readings is about preparing learners for 21st century skills.  This is a chapter out of a book of compiled writings from various authors. While this entire text discusses secondary education and we are studying adult education, there are still aspects that correlate and give us a better understanding of the use of 21st century skills, including technology, in general.  I thought it was interesting that many schools are still banning various forms of technology in schools despite the increased use of them in learning (Fisher & Frey, 2010).  Instead of embracing what the learners have and know, the learners are being punished for this.  It seems that a large part of this problem is educators look at the individual names of technology (MP3 player) and sites (Twitter) rather than what they do for learning (presenting, collaborating) (Fisher & Frey, 2010).  Educators and institutions need to take a look at their policies regarding technology and revamp these to embrace the utilization in learning while providing learners with ethics and courtesy regarding the use of technology (Fisher & Frey, 2010).  At this point, social media and other forms of virtual collaboration are here to stay and continue to grow.  I wanted to share the following website that illustrates this in real-time, it's just AMAZING how quickly things are growing.

Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2010). Preparing students for mastery of 21st century skills.  In 21st century skills: Rethinking how students learn. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Click the image to open the interactive version (via PennyStocks.la).