I had a quick look at Protonotes. It IS very basic (and only works in Internet Explorer) - it seems limited to adding sticky notes to pages, not targeted annotation like Jump Knowledge. Really, it might be useful to teachers, but isn’t really anything like a page annotator - plus the language on the front page makes it seem geared towards a very select group of people (with large scale group projects).

Hopefully you and your son can continue to inspire people to embrace technology for learning. You’ve inspired me!

Computers, and of course the internet, are such a vital part of my everyday life, that I can’t imagine not opening up that avenue for my kids. My daughter, who will be four, is already very good at navigating around some select sites - with adult supervision, of course. My 6 year old niece is learning Photoshop. She’s pretty darn good at it too!

Keeping kids from all that technology has to offer is doing them a great disservice. Allowing them to fumble through learning about the internet themselves dangerous. I aim to help my children learn to navigate the waters of the internet safely and proficiently.

Thank you so much for the links.

Mel

Educators have been jaded by the promises of technology that has not really delivered or made their lives easier as promised, and they no longer believe it any more. A few teachers can see the potential themselves and are asking for the technology, but mostly they don’t want to be fooled again.

As for the bigger organisation of ‘education’, it’s going to be a lot harder to convince ‘the powers’ to take the risks they have to take.

I agree about Matt’s mother. My fascination with this family started when I read about him at thesneeze.com.

Before you start wondering if a 9-year-old kid should really be reading The Sneeze, his mom just started reading select sections to him (cleaning it up here and there).

Isn’t that dedication to your child’s education right there? And as you’ve said, our kids will educate themselves in this if they have to, but what wisdom we might pass on will be lost if we don’t participate.

Schools are out of date and out of touch in ways they were not when I was a student. You could see the cracks back then, but they are now chasms. There are no easy answers I think.

We need a time of experimentation and risk taking. We need to be willing to make mistakes if we are to move forward.

Parents like Matt’s mother are the new hope for education. While parents remain ignorant and easily swayed by sensationalism in the media their children will continue to get the education their grandparents received. Those children will succeed in our post-post-modern world inspite of their horse and carriage education not because of it.