POINT/COUNTERPOINT
8 Learning & Leading with Technology | November 2009
Do all schools need brick-and-mortar
libraries? NOPE! Some schools don’t need library
facilities or programs or librarians. These schools’
teachers and administrators:
• Feel no need for a collaborative learning space.
Classrooms and quiet study halls are the only
places deemed appropriate for learning.
• Feel the ability to process and communicate
information in formats other than print is un-
necessary. Students in these schools use standard
written term papers as the sole means of com-
municating the results of research. The use of
word-processing software is proof of “technology
integration.” Asking stu-
dents to communicate with
audio, video, photographic,
or graphic productions is
dismissed as irrelevant to
preparing them for college.
Whereas students who are
learning to use a variety of
technologies need a place
where both the technologies
Yes
Doug Johnson
Schools simply need places to hold
words and ideas and a way to get at these words
and ideas as efficiently as possible. Hard drives are
far more economical, in every sense of the word,
than a massive space holding bound volumes.
In Act 2, Scene 2 of Hamlet, the title character
responds to Polonius’ question, “What do you read,
my lord?” with the famous quote, “Words, words,
words.” In the context of Shakespeare’s play, Ham-
let’s answer suggests that the words are meaning-
less. Of course, recently seeing your father’s ghost
is one sure-fire way to inhibit comprehension. My
bet, though, is that Hamlet would have responded
in kind whether reading from a book or from a
computer screen. The point
is that words are words,
whether read in a book or on
a computer. The mode of de-
livery means nothing as long
as there’s comprehension in
the mind toward which those
words are directed.
One day teaching in Har-
lem, I knelt next to a student
struggling to comprehend a
No
Keith Mastrion
