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November 15, 2001
Showcasing Today's Technologies
By Susan McLester, Editor in Chief
Over time, this month's planned cover feature on emerging technologies morphed into something we're calling "technology breakthroughs" instead (see "Top Ten Technology Breakthroughs for Schools"). Our reasoning? Writing about emerging technologies involves prediction, speculation, and projection. And while the bleeding-edge, science fiction-y aspect of this appeals to our imaginations as editors, in the end we felt that focusing solely on the futuristic "might be"-as opposed to the present, entirely possible "is" and "could be"-would be less helpful, inspiring, and informative to you, our readers, than the more practical approach we ultimately settled on. However, lest you consign us strictly to the Sensible Shoes Department, I hasten to point out that we have included some well-researched sidebars on futuristic technologies and their possibilities for education. See editor Kristen Kennedy's "Not There Yet," which you can access directly on our Web site via the Internet Keyword: techlearning notyet.
The 10 technologies featured here were chosen by the editors with the input of our advisory board, regular contributors, and other experts. It was a rather lengthy process, as we whittled down from 22 the technologies we felt really were gaining a foothold in schools-or were just about to. Among the runners-up were custom publishing, filtering tools, telephony, voice-to-text technologies, and Internet2 (which we refer to in Hall Davidson's Digital Video and my Videoconferencing pieces, but have not assigned a category of its own). Some of these were such narrow misses, however, that we opted for coverage in a sidebar, with the possibility of a full treatment in next year's November issue. See editor Amy Poftak's "The Contenders" (at Internet Keyword: techlearning contenders).
Though not showcased here, as it remains something less tangible than a technology, is an element suggested by board member and former T&L Teacher of the Year Bill Burrall. Bill reminds us that though these technologies are sophisticated, exciting, and sometimes awe-inspiring, they hold no hope of having any real impact on schools, educators, and kids without the pivotal force of human leadership. We'd like to second that thought.
In other departments this month we present you with practical information on a variety of topics. In Picks of the Month, high school science teacher Mike Brown takes an in-depth look at physics programs with "Into the Digital Lab with Physics Software." Susan Brooks-Young's Web Sightings tour concentrates on news and current-events sites specifically for students, and Jeff Branzburg's In-Service column helps you "crack the code" on ways to preview software products before you buy them. Also, Bridget Murray's What Works continues our new increased IT coverage-after last month's introduction of "The IT Guy" column-with tales of three schools' experiences in establishing workable tech support solutions.
We invite you to stay tuned this year for additional best practices that we hope you're finding useful in your own unique setting.
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