Learning is life-long. Inspiring people to remain curious enough to keep learning is the challenge. In terms of young people we have to help them develop the habit to explore and investigate and give them sufficient tools to know where look and what to look for. They need to understand that learning takes time and effort and can feel like hard work, but is worth all that you invest. I believe that learning is a personal choice. We can not make a person learn, and this makes our work as teachers all the more crucial. We can only attempt to motivate, inspire, intrigue and excite learners and lead them to what they can learn.

Teaching is mostly a process of creating opportunities to learn. Since we cannot make people learn, we cannot actually teach. I developed a habit or pattern when my children were very young: Putting things in their path. When they were toddlers, I would get out a puzzle or book that I wanted them to see and explore, and drop it where they were heading. Many times they would stop and explore. Sometimes they would toddle right past. If they were ready for the experience, they would take the opportunity. I still do this, in more subtle or calculated ways. This process results in having children who are “tuned in” to explore and the learning that happens in this way can be interdisciplinary, rich and exciting.

How does technology play into this? Well, I believe that a critical error we make as learning-leaders is to view technology as separate from our teaching. We are at a point in our teaching/learning continuum where we are evolving our methods and traditions about teaching/learning and therefore we see technology as something that needs to be added to our educational environments. This is natural when we hold this view. However, when we see our lives as seamlessly including technology and our educational environments as an extension of our lives, then we can see technology being naturally incorporated. Technology is integral to our educational lives, because it is integral to our lives. I realize some may see this as a bit simplistic and there are many other aspects and situations that must be considered, but taking a simplistic view can clarify things for us so that we can see farther, and perhaps, accomplish more.