Cartoons on Digital Teachers*

In the 1980s when personal computers initially entered classrooms, critics often portrayed teachers as resistant users of the new technology. Resisters or not, readers over 50 years of age may recall that getting one or two  computers in a classroom put them in the technological vanguard. Perhaps a few readers may recall an almost forgotten experiment in the mid-1980s called Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT). In seven schools around the country, Apple gave each teacher and every student a personal computer in school and at home. The experiment lasted nearly a decade and disappeared.

Now, there are 1:1 laptop classrooms and an abundance of devices for both teachers and students. Teachers use their electronic devices (cell phones, desktops at home, laptop or tablet, ebook readers) as much at home as they do in their classrooms. Many teachers teach online courses. Many more teachers have become skilled users of interactive white boards. The digital teacher has arrived. Many cartoonists, however, have yet to catch up and still portray teachers as resisters of new technology.

Here are some I have collected. Enjoy. Laugh. Wince.

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*Since September 2011, I have published  cartoons once monthly on different aspects of schools, reform, students, and teachers. See: “Digital Kids in School,” “Testing,” “Blaming Is So American,”  “Accountability in Action,” “charter schools,” and “Age-graded schools,” and Students and Teachers, Parent-Teacher Conferences.

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