Turning on the Lights

Turning On the Lights by Marc Prensky

I found this article fascinating and it made me think about technology in the classroom in a new way.  I hadn't thought about school being the 'dark' part of the day for students because school has always been where students are enlightened and introduced to things they might not experience at home.  But I completely see the author's point that kids are exposed to more information, much more early, through various channels than ever before and when we shut down those familiar channels in school we cut them off from a source of information that they are familiar with.  Also, I find it very sad that students feel like when they have to power down their tech devices they also end up powering down their brains.  It's almost as if technology is a new learning style.
I also liked some of his 'Principles for Principals', particularly the one about letting students have a meaningful voice in setting technology policy.  Let's face it, the kids are probably way more up on the newest and most exciting things and having a technology policy is really useless if it doens't address the actual ways that students are interacting with technology.  I also love the idea of eliminating busy work and lectures.  Neither of these 'teaching' techniques typically play to the strengths of most children.  There are so many better ways to have students express themselves than vocabulary lists and worksheets!  I also think if teachers would take the time to think about it there are better ways for them to express themselves than lecture and Power Point. 
I guess my big takeway was just to be open to the various ways that technology can be useful in 'turning on the lights' for kids.  I hope to embrace technology in my own classroom and I think some of the tips in this article will be helpful to me in doing just that.