Continuing on the post below, let’s look at some of the common Luddite objections to technology in the classroom, as represented in the Red Herring article that got me all irked.
Technology is expensive. Yes. It is. So are buildings, but we don’t hold classes in log cabins. Let’s cut to the chase: money is not the issue. Return on investment is. If people felt like the money being spent on technology was well spent, there wouldn’t be a peep about it. So we’re faced with an issue of performance . . . or, as I will argue, an issue of expectation of performance. I’ll come back to some of the dollar issues, but let’s look at the bones of contention that generate these skewed perception.
It’s not real education. Take a look at the example in the first paragraph of the Red Herring article. It of course centers on PowerPoint, the favorite scapegoat of ed tech Luddites (c.f. Clifford Stoll’s High Tech Heretic, his follow-up to Silicon Snake Oil — this guy makes a career out of being a contrarian). The article says, “They are learning how to use PowerPoint, but they have no idea what the content means.”
This is a telling comment because it exhibits a couple of prevalent misconceptions about technology in education, namely “technology in education is about ‘computer literacy’ ” and “technology in education is always some mode of self-directed learning that is supposed to replace the teacher.”
“Computer literacy” was a hiccup in the history of ed tech. There was this tiny window of time from the mid-80s to the early-90s where a few teachers actually new more about technology than the students. I went to high school just before that window; not long after I graduated in the mid-80s all high school students in my system were required to take a semester of “Computer Science” where they learned a few lines of BASIC on an Apple IIe. The assumption was that in The Future everyone would need to be able to program their computer. Well, we know where that went. I’m sure “computer literacy” is still taught in some schools — curriculum is notoriously slow to change — but for the most part the vast majority of students are more computer literate than their teachers, so this is practically a non-issue these days. The presumtion is that the students were “learning PowerPoint.” In fact, I expect the objective of the students in the example was not to learn how to create presentations in PowerPoint; they were creating presentations in service of some other learning objective.
The implicit assumption in this example is that the teacher is absent from this PowerPoint activity, and that the students are being “taught” (or, rather, not taught) by PowerPoint. Most Luddite screeds against ed tech always provide examples with absent teachers. In fact, very little educational software — especially at the primary and secondary levels — is meant to be used in the absence of a teacher guiding and providing context. You may find this more frequently in higher education and quite frequently in “lifelong learning” (e.g. corporate training, professional development, etc.) because the learners are presumably more mature and capable of self-direction at these levels (although that’s often a leap of faith). Most educational technology is intended to be used in the appropriate context with the guidance of a teacher.
When presenting their anti-tech screeds the Luddites always leave out the teacher. So let’s put him/her back into this scene. We have a pair of students working on an assignment — apparently not one they understand well — and not succeeding in the goal, “to learning about the human liver.”
One quick aside that I can’t let pass: the article author mentions “After spending 20 minutes just designing the introduction page, the students still can’t answer the most basic question: What does the liver do?” How many adults could spend 20 minutes surfing medical web sites and come up with a satisfactory answer to that question? Learning rarely happens in 20 minutes, ferpetesake. An activity like the one described would be only a small part of an overall lesson, perhaps just an exercise to get them engaged with and thinking about the questions, how to find the answers to the questions, or how to formulate and communicate those answers.
Anyway, as an educator, my first question in this situation is not “Why are they using PowerPoint?” but “Where’s the damn teacher?” The Luddite assumption is that the technology is the obstacle, but we haven’t examined the assignment. Is it well-framed? Are the objectives clear? Do the learners understand it? Is it within their skill levels?). Nor have we examined the teacher’s involvement What assistance is teh teacher giving? What feedback? At what point in the process? (Sometimes it’s best to let the students struggle awhile before bailing them out.)
In fact this example — like most anecdotal evidence offered in these screeds — is misleading. Education is about the teaching, not about the tools used to teach. That deserves pull-quote status:
EDUCATION IS ABOUT THE TEACHING, NOT ABOUT THE TOOLS USED TO TEACH.
Take a high-tech classroom with a room full of well-prepared, affluent students who have all the current textbooks. Put a crappy teacher at the front of the class, and those students still won’t learn. Take a decrepit inner-city classroom with nothing but a chalkboard and 14-year old textbooks and fill it with troubled, under-prepared students. Stick an excellent teacher at the front of the room, and those students will learn. Please don’t take that as an indicate that we should do away with technology, affluence, or air-conditioned classrooms. The reality is that while both of those extreme examples are true, education exists on a spectrum between those extremes; it’s not that simple.
However, technology is a tool, and like any tool, it’s effectiveness depends upon the appropriateness of the tool to the task, the skill of the person using it, and the matching of the tool to the skills. I’ve provided training on using technology in education to over 2000 faculty and teachers at close to 150 institutions since 1996. At every workshop, I always cautioned the participants, “Don’t try to hammer a nail with a banana.” Just because technology is there, doesn’t mean you have to use it, especially if it doesn’t fit your learning objective. Likewise, you could put the best hammer in my hands, but I’d still build a lopsided house with a leaky roof. I’ve never learned to use that tool appropriately, so I’m not going to be successful with it. Not only do you need the right tool for the job, but you the person who knows how to use the tool. Likewise, the best carpenter in town might be pretty handy with a hammer, but put a swell pair of knitting needles and the finest yarn in her hands, and she won’t be able to knit you a napkin. Just because you’re experienced and professional with one set of tools, doesn’t mean those skills transfer over to another set of tools.
I’m going to stop there for now. There is yet more to come. Oh man, I’m just getting started! Next post(s), I’m going to delve step a little further into the “technology is a tool” idea and talk about teaching teachers about technology (my specialty). I’ll get into the myth of the “technology should make education better” expectation (I’ve got a doozy of a story to share there). I’ll probably ramble about some other stuff, but I plan to end up talking about what I see as the real strengths of technology in education. Join in the fray — post your thoughts in the comments area.
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