Snow Days, the Internet, and the Zombi Apocaplyse

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     Funny thing about snow days...they actually give you time to think.  Question number 1...why bother learning facts when we have the internet or an app for that?  A student who struggles a bit in math showed me this cool app.  He writes the math problem with his finger, it is converted to text and the answer appears.  So if this exists and my son is learning his math facts, why should he bother when there is an app for that?  One reason comes to mind, his life (hopefully) will outlast the life of the device so therefore he may not always be able to depend on it.

     Here is another point that Rob Mancabelli asked.  Why bother with a traditional school when the internet, in some regards, has so much more to offer 24 7?  MIT has open course ware in science.  I can take it whenever I want.  Students can access information that I could never provide.  So why bother with traditional school?  What if traditional school could offer something that the internet cannot...like higher order thinking skills.  Sure, anyone can find the facts.  But does the internet help us to apply those facts in a unique and creative way to solve problems in our world and local community?

     There is a professor at Miami University in Oxford Ohio who is working on attaching a laser to a telescope in hopes of turning it into a device that saves lives.  A person would be able to use this device to point the laser from a distance at a possible roadside bomb.  The telescope is hooked up to another instrument that would use the laser and its reflection to detect chemicals that make up bombs and warn the user.  The internet cannot come up with the creativity to think up and build those devices.  It cannot provide the courage to use them. 

     It sound crazy, but maybe we should teach kids what they need to know to survive the ultimate bad day.  They come to work and the copier is down, the network is not working, they lost their smart phone, there is no coffee, and they are being attacked by flesh eating zombies (hence the zombi apocalypse).  Could they survive or would they just buy time until the network is back up?