Let's face it: students need to increasingly be able to live in a virtual, paperless world in order to be successful. And as nostalgic as we want to get about the good old days of paper and pencil, the flipping of pages, bookmarks, and the smell (or stench) of books, the fact that the world is moving away from paper is not going to change. We also have to be honest about the fact that this is a good thing.
The capabilities afforded by technology far surpass those of a paper world. Resources are far more readily available. Communication is enhanced and immediate. Information is at our fingertips. Most importantly, a wealth educational opportunity is one Google search away. These are also good things.
Living in an online world, however, requires a very different skill set of students. Whereas 20 years ago scanning a document meant you were looking for a word or phrase, today CTRL-F does the trick...in 1/100th the time. Taking notes almost always involved reading, listening, copying, summarizing, and cramped hands. Nowadays, this involves a simple screen grab. Fine-motor abilities included writing in cursive. Now, it is far more important for students to be able to use a keyboard and click-and-drag effectively. Education itself used to equal access to information. It doesn't mean the same thing anymore. Many of the skills that were required for a successful student just a couple decades ago are no longer even necessary. This is a very good thing, not just because things are a little easier, but because we now have more time to engage in critical thinking, to analyze information, and to create new information and technologies.
New skills are required. These skills are the new selective pressures in our free market economy, favoring those who are proficient and dooming those who are not. The bad news for students and schools is that the selection isn't going to wait to begin until they graduate. While students wallow in classrooms modeled after those in which their teachers were successful, others are building an academic digital identity that will set them ahead. Every learning opportunity for which technology would be a suitable enhancement and it is not, is an opportunity others are taking advantage of in other places.