Johnson

[|Doug Johnson Website]



Doug Johnson has taught in the K-12 school districts for several years. He's now the director of Media and Technology in a Minnesota School district. He's written several articles and books about school technology and information as well as traveled around the country speaking about technology at several conferences.

In his latest blog entry that I've just looked at, Johnson mentioned how often students don't complete their "digital" homework because they don't have access to the technology outside of school. In response, he said that schools should invest in GoogleApps for Education. GoogleApps for Education is a Cloud-based software that allows students to have access to mail, calendars as well as basic Office software, like Word, and Powerpoint, all in one place. Currently, I am in a computer application for education class this quarter and we are doing an assignment using Cloud applications. Generally, I think this is a good idea to use in a school, even in the classroom because students can collaborate on various projects. It also gives library media specialists the ability to work with students and teachers colloraborate, share, and receive information.

I think that becoming more media/technology based (going "paperless") can be a good idea when the technology works. But I still think librarians should still keep a hard copy of everything they do, just in case the technology decides it doesn't want to work. This is a concern of mine with using technology. If we become so dependent upon technology, what will happen when technology fails or gets messed up? I say this from having to use dialup at home--not all highly-functioning wesbites works at home, or at WSU where connection is slow because everybody's using it or the CATs people are working on something.

A.E.