Digital Farming

The term "digital farm" makes me think of one thing, Farmville on Facebook. I must confess that I was once a Farmville addict, rushing home to harvest my plants and earn gold coins to progress in level. I have gone through a recovery program and no longer feel the need to plan my day around activities involving finding new homes for lost black sheep. I do however feel a slight twinge whenever I see a status update touting a friend's upward progress on the Farmville scale.

The idea of the digital age and the impact it is having on education has sent many teachers scurrying and hiding in the closet with their overhead projectors. Chapter 11 in Heidi Hayes Jacobs' book, Curriculum 21, is about losing control to technology in our very own classrooms.

The chapter's author, Alan November, talks about how many schools have banned new technologies because there is no way to completely monitor how students are using them. In the past, children were needed to contribute to the family farms to make sure that the family was successful. In short, children were needed. With the advent of many farm machines, children's value and ability to contribute decreased. We are now faced with a new role for students, "students making contributions to their learning communities (p.188)". We need a digital farm where students can contribute!