Just over a week ago, my wife gave birth to our second child – a healthy, adorable, little boy. For my wife and me, having a second child was a much different experience than when we had our first: we were no longer afraid that we were going to break the baby. We didn’t feel like the hospital should be sued for negligence for allowing us to take the child home. And, perhaps most importantly for this blog, my wife and I now both had smart phones. While one would think the first two items would be worth discussing with soon-to-be repeat parents, I found myself more fascinated by the latter – the presence of this Swiss Army Knife of a phone in my hand. As with our first child’s birth, I took pictures, I made phone calls (Hi, it’s a ___!), and I crafted the email I would send to my friends and family. This time, however, I had the power to hit send within only seconds of my son entering the world. And thus rose my first dilemma as a second-time father – to post, or not to post, that newborn picture?

Digital Learning Day is coming up on February 6, and there will no doubt be a lot of conversation and debate about whether online tools can help students prepare for career and college. While career and college preparation are important goals, they aren’t the sum of the purposes of schools: Our educational institutions also have an obligation to prepare students for citizenship and for a reflective, ethical, and well-examined life.