Is Digital Storytelling the salvation of public education? The more I incorporate media and technology into my weekly lessons the more that I am surprised by its power. The strength that it holds onto students is fascinating even for someone who was raised by television, Hollywood movies, and MTV. I have used technology like texting, Podcasts, and websites to get results from students that otherwise would be considered “non-students” by most people. This is what gets me thinking. If someone is already engaged by wires, buttons, a screen and a few light taps on glass, through gadgets that were non existent months ago, then public education has a chance. The next step is to get society behind the idea of innovation in the classroom. Public relations need to improve for education. Teachers need to promote, showcase, and present this power of “new media” to the masses: to those that don’t have children in the public schools, to those who don’t like increasing taxes for the greater good, to those that can’t understand why teachers want a pay raise that at least is within close sight of other degreed professional’s salaries. Simple supply and demand could result to lower the price of these new tools within the classroom. Just as the MIT Labs have exponentially spread the positives of musical intelligence to greater and greater numbers of people who might not have otherwise benefitted from “playing” an instrument through their work creating Guitar Hero, other institutions of learning can influence more and more students school by school. The spread of technology in the classroom could be part of the everyday educational mainstream like pencil, college-ruled paper and a textbook if it becomes the norm and not the anomaly. It all begins by pressing Send, Play, or Record, not Delete.
