Waves

There is a beach that I really enjoy visiting. As well as being very beautiful with crystal clear waters, it has some great three, four, even five high metre waves. It's the thing that keeps me coming back to the place time and time again. However, most people here prefer the sea when its calm and smooth as a billiard table, they like the fact that it is just like a swimming pool, predictable, safe.

Now the secret to swimming with large waves is to know when to enter the sea. Go in too late and you get hit by the full force of the wave, which can knock you for six. Get it right and its like having your own personal carnival ride.

It occurred to me that this is a good analogy as far as using technology in the classroom is concerned, reading blogs such as Cool Cat Teacher, Ewan McIntosh's Edublog or EFL Geek I see teachers wading out to meet the huge changes that are rapidly approaching, preparing their students to deal with and even enjoy the such developments'

On the other hand those teachers and institutions that ignore the existence of such changes are going to hit doubly hard by the swiftness of the technological, economic and geopolitical wave that is coming our way.

They believe that they can keep on teaching using the materials and approaches they have always used and feel most comfortable with. That the outside world will not intrude upon what happens inside the classroom. I wonder how deep the water has to get before they realise change is inevitable ?