I recently posed the following question to a few different groups of teachers: “What is the role of a teacher?” Of the 100+ teachers I questioned, the general consensus was that a teacher should prepare the student to be a successful adult. I took that to mean that we need to give children the skills that will help them to be successful since we have only a vague idea of the tasks that kids will be fulfilling in 10 to 20 years time. I had been planning on writing something along these lines for a while. Oddly enough, it was a Twitter conversation involving @teachertoolkit about a BBC article on outsourcing marking that made me finally put pen to paper:

Schools are being increasingly seen as businesses. However, many people enter the teaching profession precisely because they see school as something pure and untainted by the commercial world. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean that schools shouldn’t adopt cutting-edge principles of marketing in order to meet the needs of our pupils.

There is increasing noise in the education world about the use of technology in the classroom. Does it have a place? Should it be used heavily in schools? Does improper use even stop children from learning?