Is Technology the "Superman" for our Education System?

"Waiting for Superman," a 2010 documentary film by director Davis Guggenheim portrays the blundering educational labyrinth that America's school system has formed into.  The subject matter is one difficult to describe; almost as polarizing as global warming.  As an Academy Award-winning director of the novel environmental depiction "An Inconvenient Truth," he has yet again taken an extremely controversial situation and documented it from the eyes of the participants.  In "Superman," he shows the raw truth of the American Public Education System as five children struggle through their heart and mind-rendering schools, waiting to be "saved by Superman."  Four of these children are from poor and African-American or Hispanic families, denoting the status of equality in schools as well as the convoluted economics behind them.  They are highly sympathetic children, taking a toll from their school instead of "serving their souls."  For example, Anthony, a Washington, D.C., fifth-grader, who is parent-less, losing a father to drugs and a mother to indifference. His grandmother is raises him with love, but she will need help to keep him focused. "Superman" focuses on the growing disparity and immediate call to action necessary for the educational system of the United States to improve.

Guggenheim utilizes a plethora of logos hard facts and statistics, personal pathos, ethos or values and morals of society, and obstacle-led schooling.  Through a personal study of these five students, it reveals the hard truth, that they are all waiting for their number coming up in a lottery so they can go to better schools.
The idea is of the tracking system our schools have created; that a certain percentage of individuals are "tracked" at the very beginning of their school years to learn at a pre-diagnosed degree of intellectual quality in order to go into occupations with a correlating degree of qualifications and skills.  Adjunct to this, certain schools hold a status-quo of their own, aligning standards with social economic status and where you are on the tracking system.  If you are put in a failing school or what the film calls "academic stinkholes" or "dropout factories" then you have hardly a hope to graduate with your options of future career endeavors dwindling.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=JMjUSQk5WH4

"There are multiple levels of government, conflicting funding agendas, and inconsistent curricular standards. The challenges are seemingly endless, the bureaucracy stifling to creativity, initiative and efficacy, costs inevitably borne by young innocents who are ill-equipped to pay," says Dino Sossi in an article of MST Times. (Mathematics, Science, and Technology) 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1VX1apvagA

On the other side where the grass is greener, the film highlights educators and administrators as heroes of battle in facing  the bureaucracy.  He also studied five first-year teachers in poor, under-performing public schools, and marveled at their passion and dedication to their students.  What can help these teachers hold on to that dedication and make a change for everyone and not just the small percentage of students they engage?  One idea, is the power of technology. 
My thoughts are that technology at home and in the classroom is not only a renovating system of teaching tools, but a stone in the tracking belt.  In other words, how does technology play a new part in this stagnant, seemingly dooming system that exists?  In what ways can we, as teachers, take our learning outside of school time and in the classroom and extend it into the child's personal life, 24/7.  My belief is that throughout a single day of school, each child should take home at least one thing that really fired up mind wheels and got them excited and passionate about knowledge and learning.  If technological uses could be a tool in guaranteeing that effect, then I am all for exploring the realm it offers.  How do you use it?  What a good question.  Blogs, such as this, create great discussion forms and project idea boards for students individually and collaboratively.  Using Smart-boards in the classroom is a cutting edge way of collaborating in small groups or as a whole class.  Educational websites that are fun and informative offer new, dynamic modes of stimulation in young, active minds. But what else?  How can computers be used effectively?
Intervention classes (Reading intervention, special education, Title I, and English Language Learners): Technology is assimilated into all classrooms. Individualized learning through technology helps struggling students.
Principal enables teachers’ Professional Learning, encourages collaboration and leads change management.    Good principals give teachers the tools they need to teach in a new environment.
  Games and Simulations and Social Media – Students have accessible technology daily to use, and scaffolding the curiosity and highly social nature of students keeps them in schools.
   Daily use of technology in core subject area classes. Personalized learning with technology for engagement and collaboration.
Online Assessment and Feedback: Motivational tool for students to take results as they are for higher achievement.

What about schools who cannot yet afford this?
 One Laptop Per Child also recently appraised its upcoming $99 laptop with claims that it could end the purchase and carrying around of textbooks.

Is technology the Superman of our classrooms...?

http://bcove.me/ljt1yoxk

Maybe not in this way, but it is a part of the equation.