And we continue to wonder what the problem is with our "21st century schools"

This morning, I sent an educator that I know an email about using Skype. Skype is a wonderful web-based application that allows you to place a call from your computer to another Skype user on their computer for free. All you need is an Internet connection. It’s safe, fun and secure and teachers from Maine to California are using Skype to communicate and collaborate with schools and classrooms from across the country and across the globe.

In any event, this particular educator hadn’t heard of Skype so I recommended that she give it a try.

About an hour later, I received an email in response:

“I will try and download skype. The computer I have at the high school is terrible. You would think a system like [ours], which is very up-to-date with many things, would give me a decent computer! I am on the 'waiting list'.. Lol. I even tried to buy my own computer to use but they wouldn't let me use it, go figure.”

When I recommended that she download Skype on a personal computer if downloading it onto the school-issued computer proved too difficult, she replied:

“It's funny because the students are given the new computers but some of them are not even hooked up yet. In the special education rooms there might be one that is ready to work. I work with some teachers who were given new laptops but refuse to use them, so they are sitting in the closet. But because they were "given" to that teacher, I can't use it. It makes no sense at all!!!

Alrighty now.

And we continue to wonder what the problem is with our "21st century schools."