Teddy Bears Go Blogging

Technology for children done well is marvelous to behold. And this was a marvelous example of tapping into children's native curiosity and social nature by using technology as a facilitator. This is the pen-pal for the 21st Century. Importantly, this class project focused on the communications experience rather than the technology itself and this focus is the key piece we need to keep foremost in our thoughts as we incorporate technology into our educational programs. These children learned so much through this exercise that would formerly and formally be parceled into different curricular areas: language arts, geography, culture, home economics and history. Moreover, they learned to collaborate and cooperate with their peers. The opportunity that technology presents, particularly in the town-hall, writ-large, cyber-community of social media, is an extraordinary means to re-integrate educational disciplines in a real-world, social context for our children. Unlike the plastic Mr. Potato Head, this is an excellent, educative and meaningful application of new technology to update an old children's pass-time.