This great new tool is like a large screen-touch computer, called surface computing.

Annie mentioned that it would be much fun to use it in the classroom. I agree with this statement, it would be really fun to use it. Students could make interactive portfolios and instead of having a traditional desk, students could have this computer-graphic-screen-touch-hands-on-desk.

TALE and other websites built bridges between communities and allow teachers, parents and children to access easily and quickly to information. It is interesting to see that many people are willing to share their knowledge or information with others in the perceptive of offering a better education to our children.

This type of websites have a place in the classroom. Teachers can use them not only to seek information with their students but also to teach their students how to look for intersting information and documents. Consequently, students learn to define their research and to develop a critic thinking.

To me, this project is fantastic to more than one level. First of all as a future LOTE teacher, it is exactly the kind of project I would like to engage my students with. Secondly, Bernard Garcin proved me that even in France, mentalities are changing and a more constructivist education is taking place. Lastly, In France as in many other countries, schools are closing in small villages and youths are living those places. This type of e-learning and e-teaching could be one of the key to maintain schools in these areas.

As Tanja, I also think that blogging should be used in moderation. However it can be a great tool when it comes to interact with others. Not only in a basic communicative way but also in a constructive way. Students can post their work online and have feeds back from other students at the other end of the world. To me that definitively help students to construct their thinking. In fact, students are confronted with other realities, believes and thinking.

I read Maree’s posting Socialising in Cyberspace, she asks us what are our concerns (or comments) about children using the Internet and social-networking sites to communicate.

I feel extremely concerned about this topic. I started to use the Internet since I moved to Australia. It is a good way to keep in touch with my friends and my family even if I still use the traditional pen and paper as well as the phone. I find the Internet a great way to communicate. However I have been stunned by the amount of ‘trash’ I came across with…. Please watch the video. Thanks!

This is a reactionary post to Rosa’s posting ‘what a challenge‘.

This is a reactionary podcast on Georgie’s posting: ‘Phone a friend in Exams’

I think That what Prensky forget is that teenagers are not only different because of the new technologies they use but because they are teenagers. Men are from Mars, Women fromVenus and teens from Pluto. Take a few teens and put them together. What are they going to speak about? Clothes, pocket money, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, the new hot moviestar and how bad the Math teacher is. They might do it via emails or sms but the reality is that their favourite topics are the same than the generation before and the one before.

What did also surprise me is how Marc Prensky can certify that all those teens are expert in technologies. Not like Julia, I am surrounded by teens, at Tae Kwon Do at my choir and between my 11 nephews and nieces 6 are teenagers. All of them are different and all of them have a different approach to technologies. Some are crazy about them and others prefer to do ‘real staff’. Two of my nephews could fit the profile Prensky makes of Digital Natives. I calculated that between, TV, videogames and the Internet they spend 8 hours in their virtual world, almost everyday.

However, when you ask Michael* 14 years old if he prefers to play cricket in the garden or a good soccer game with all the family or to play on his video games, he still prefers the old sport game. When you ask his sister Alicia* 16 if she would prefer to learn French for 3 months with a computer game than to spend 3 months learning it with a French teacher and then have a trip to France for a month she will prefer the old teacher and the trip to France.

Why do they spend so much time in this Digital world? The answer is because they are bored. I am sure that you remember how easily bored you were as a teen, I was.

A boring teacher will always be a boring teacher no matter the amount of Digital Technology he or she will use in his or her class.

I truly believe that it is the responsibility of the educators and the parents to show a balance between the digital and the real word. Like everything in life there are positive aspects in each world.

* For purpose of privacy names have been changed.