ad hominem. oops!

Seriously, do teachers have any idea what a waste of time it is for us to sit there and watch them hand-write whole sentences character after painful character and then erase it just to start the tedium all over again? Think of the amount of information that could be presented to us if an LCD screen replaced a chalkboard -- teachers could prep ahead of time and instuctions in, say, writing Kanji could be prepared stroke-by-stroke without the professor lifting a finger. Can Powerpoint do that? Of course not. And there's something about discussing through text that beats anything that can be said verbally -- seeing our ideas in print reaffirms and strengthens our ideas, our writing, the deeper we get into it.

Great panel idea wiki's and backchannels have both been debated at our law school with very different reactions. Implementation and expectations in classrooms is as important as which tools are allowed. I hope this panel makes it.

I think this would be a great panel! Personally, I think that technology should really be kept out of the classroom, but I'd love to have this be a public discussion!

Just to get some hands thrown up in the air (like you just don't care... but I promise you will):

I'm happy to announce that Prof. Jonathan Zittrain (author of "The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It") and Prof. Michael Wesch (producer of the hit YouTube video, "The Machine is Us/ing Us") have expressed interest in speaking for this panel!

Would love to participate given some contrary experiences at Emerson -- sending students out to interact with people and they have trouble finding or talking to strangers. The friend/network cocoon wraps up an awful lot of people so maybe there needs to be less tech and more out-of-network exploration.

This is a great panel idea. In particular, we should have learning environments that encourage more students to voice their opinions on a regular basis. This would later result in a more balanced representation of opinions and ideas throughout mainstream news media. Good luck!

Having a conversation about the place of technology in learning necessitates first a discussion about what learning actually involves, as well as what technology actually is/supposed to be. Do more PowerPoints, Wikis and using chatrooms to debate ideas really help the data to sink into people's minds? Technology streamlines and speeds things up, but anything that increases the information thrown at students in classrooms actually makes learning more difficult. Technology can't and shouldn't be used to speed up a process that takes place in the brain.

Why should it matter how kids /want/ technology to be incorporated into the classroom? Shouldn't they be learning how to understand ideas through the written and spoken word, and articulate it as such? The answer to your panel lies at the intersection (if there is one) of the goal of education and the goal of technology. Solve this system of equations, and you'll see that never the twain shall meet.

I like this idea a lot, Alex. I hope you will check out "Learners" and related chapters in _Born Digital_, which will be available in a week or so (http://www.borndigitalbook.com). John and Urs' work here will be useful for framing the opportunities in the context of some of the challenges of incorporating technology into the classroom and other educational contexts.

Related to the previous comment, I'd like to plug news that Prof. Urs Gasser (soon to be author of "Born Digital") has also expressed interest in joining the panel discussion!

Ever since I started using backchannels in meeting/events, I've been impressed with dimension it adds to the dialogue in a room. It certainly affects the dynamic, in most cases positively, but a discussion about how to properly on how to properly integrate backchannels into a classroom setting would certainly be useful (especially if you have the professors you mentioned on the panel!)

Conversations like this need to occur in schools of all levels around the country. Determining technology's role in education presents quite a challenge. On one hand, schools have the responsibility of preparing students for the world they will enter as adults, which means being on the cutting-edge of technology. On the other hand, technology can distance students from their teachers, classmates, and the information they're learning. I believe it is a question every learning community needs to answer for itself but only after open discussion.

I'm skeptical to throw out traditional classroom techniques right away, but it does seem that technology is inevitably taking over the classroom. I agree with Donna in that "technology can distance students from their teachers, classmates, and the information they're learning", but we may ultimately see a reversal in that technology must be implemented in order for students and teachers to connect. Good luck with the panel!

Your panel was excellent, it was refreshing and interesting to hear from the student's point of view. Audience members had criticisms or observations about the views presented, but in the end, it is important to remember the things we heard were based on individual, real experience, and we are richer for the sharing.

Well done.

I hope to attend next time

Interesting, you have my vote.

Yes, real experience, many thanks