Digital Technology and the End of Social Studies Education

"Our beliefs about learners and tools come via Dewey and Vygotsky, and have been informed by the 'cognitive revolution' that in the last thirty years has given these ideas scientific weight:
~ Technologies as tools that amplify and extend fundamental human capacities to observe, understand and communicate about the world- tools that give us rich data, help us manipulate and think about it, and connect us with others around it in new and powerful ways." ~ Bill Tally
This article was an interesting and raised up many questions many educators, specifically ones who have been on the technology bandwagon, have been asking: Why hasn't technology in education been the tipping point yet? Three possible explanations: The teachers are to blame, schools are to blame, testing/accountability regime are to blame. I think, as a tech 'tinkerer', that a combination of all three have led to the education 'scale' to not be tipped.

The article also spoke about the purpose behind WebQuests that caught my attention. WebQuests were the 'craze' back when I was first teaching in Manhattan (over 9 years ago). We were asked to volunteer our time to spend several lunches with a professor from Columbia University, where we learned all about Bernie Dodge. Since that time, WebQuests have become a natural part of my 'teacher-speak'. However, this article raises the question of the 'ubiquitous' WebQuests: Are they purposeful? Do they represent the triumph of process over substance? Is it relevant? All these questions made me reevaluate my position on such projects.

All this reading and discussing made me think: Did education get evaluated and reevaluated when the radio was invented? Did teachers have to rethink the way they teach when the television was invented? I know these tools are different from what we are being introduced to these days, but I'm wondering if this is just a phase....