"When One Person's Tech Treasure Is Another's Trash" - Duh

Proud of INABILITY to help students use wikis effectively? Blame technology? Ben Gose, Chronicle of Higher Ed, May 8, 2011. Article ignores responsibility of faculty or students, blames technology.   

What about the importance of FACULTY providing guidance for students about effective, responsible use of technology for an assignment? What about the importance of SOMEONE providing guidance for faculty about effective, responsible use of technology within courses?

 "Tools that truly aid teaching aren't new to academe...But as consumer technology becomes ubiquitous, faculty members must sort through a bewildering array of options to figure out which new gadgets and software are worth keeping, and which belong in the reject pile. The process is all the more tricky because some corporate marketers and campus-based technology experts may be inclined to push the latest gizmo regardless of its effectiveness in the classroom." 

Article ends with:  

"But he's [Bauerlein] never been a fan of students who use their laptops in the classroom, and he hit a breaking point in the spring of 2009 in an American literature course while reading from The Awakening,the 1899 novella by Kate Chopin. As the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, was swimming deeper and deeper into the Gulf of Mexico, eventually to die, several students were looking down at their laptops.

"When she sinks beneath the waves, and they're smiling, something is not connecting," Mr. Bauerlein says."The next time he taught the course, in the spring of 2010, Mr. Bauerlein announced that he was banning laptops from the classroom. Half the class applauded."