I’ve come across several articles in the last month about technology and education that have got me thinking about where educators, schools, and society spend their energy and money. In one, a teacher shows how using youtube and online information has changed how he teaches. In another, the US government announces it is going to focus more on the use of digital technology in education.
In both of these articles, there is an inherent assumption that technology is a key to solving our educational problems.
I ain’t so sure.
I am, I guess, a semi-Luddite, in that I have a “prove it to me” approach to whatever the latest hot thing is. Technology (like computers, ipads, and, um, books) has its place. And something in the whole slew of new generation of software and hardware and connectivity has value. But figuring out which thing it is and how to use it isn’t that easy.
And there are other things that are important, too.
What would you expect from a storyteller? – a guy who spends most of his time in front of warm bodies, emitting intentionally formed bits of air out of his mouth.
But I’m no enemy of technology – as long as it’s considered. And I want to be careful and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
But all this talk about technology in education has me thinking several things about its limits and problems.
First, in almost all the literature extolling the use of new media and technology, there is the underlying, still unproven assumption that all this stuff is going to do a better job at teaching students. We still don’t know if that’s true, but we are always attracted to what ‘s new, hoping it’s our savior. A recent article in the NYTimes about a district outside of Phoenix notes that their heavy investment hasn’t reaped the rewards they were hoping for. Defenders are quick to say that the testing used to measure student achievement doesn’t really measure what the technology is helping to develop – a new way of thinking. We artists use that argument against standardized testing too, but it’s a little surprising that technology rides in on a promise of raising test scores, and then shifts its argument. (And actually, the arts has proven their value that time and time again, to no apparent acknowledgement or effect on the part of the powers that be.) I’m no fan of standardized testing, but if we’re going to spend billions on something, it would be nice to know it works.
Second – there is no way technology would be everyone’s darling if it didn’t involve huge amounts of money. There is a lot at stake here, and it’s notable that the people who are crowing the loudest about its possibilities are those who have spent their lives designing and selling technology. Apple and Google run the workshops for teachers on how to use technology and in the Internet in the classroom. Should we be surprised that they see technology as the answer to our problems? Is it shocking that the Gates Foundation has found a way to influence the discussion about what American education needs? Education is a gold mine for corporations, and they spend a great part of their time lobbying everyone about its possibilities.
I’m not saying these people don’t have good intentions. Of course they believe in what they’re doing.
But that doesn’t mean they’re right.
National, state and local governments have bought in. Lobbyists help.
Schools spend millions of dollars every year on new technologies to help teachers. And the truth is, the companies that sell the stuff already have plans for something else that will make it obsolete in five years. When you buy a hundred computers, you know you’re going to buy a hundred more in a couple of years. Corporations selling it have that figured out.
You don’t make that much money off pencils.
Or teachers. Corporations don’t really benefit from developing skills in a teacher (unless it’s to use their product). I am left wondering what it would be like if we spent anywhere near the money we do on technology on working intimately with teachers on classroom management skills and group dynamics. Or (here it is…) on being good storytellers. Or on how to really foster good relationships between home and school and giving parents support. These things are teachable, but they’re not bright and shiny – they are actually kind of hard to do, and they have no glossy flyers and videos with pulsing beats that promise the moon and stars.
One result of the ever-increasing dependency and worship of technology as a teaching panacea will be an increasing gap between the rich and the poor. If you’re like me, you’re more and more upset about the widening rift between the haves and have-nots. I walked into a teacher’s room at a fairly well-heeled school a couple of weeks ago and saw all the teacher’s assistants (which means two adults in each classroom) sitting around a table – fifteen of them all with identical Apple laptops.
Not happening in Bedford-Stuyvesant, I think. Or most places, really. Most school districts will never be able to afford the luxury of the newest technology. Especially since we don’t really want to spend money on education for those less fortunate. And Apple donating computers doesn’t really solve the problem.
The more we praise technology and the latest development, the more we ignore those who will never see it. The more all this stuff costs, the more students we leave behind.
So I’m brought back to the notion that a lot of energy is being devoted to one aspect of learning at the expense of other things. Technology will not close the gap between rich and poor. Technology is not the answer to someone who does not know how to teach. And I don’t believe a video has the same impact as a flesh and bones teacher, well trained and familiar with the student, giving the same information. It may provide support, but not replacement.
I think we praise technology because we’re hoping it’s the quick fix. Tech purveyors want us to think that, too.
And the deeper, more long range truth, is that the growth of all this technology and continued production of more and more stuff is unsustainable. We can’t afford, in the long run, to depend on more and more. There is a reckoning up ahead, and it will probably force us to fall back upon some simpler approaches to communicating.
In the past couple of weeks I’ve talked with a number of teachers and principals about this. Several principals (and good ones, I think) noted that it’s not all or nothing – they are really figuring out how to incorporate technology into teaching so it’s a useful tool. That’s good. A good teacher has a wide array of resources and methods they draw on when teaching. And advanced technology, within limits, is a great idea.
Like I said, I’m a semi-Luddite. Until we use up the fossil fuel, we’re not going back. But I don’t believe the hype and promise. Because I’ve also seen what good administrators and teachers can do with more limited resources.
They need some attention, too.
I’m not a lucite, in fact I’m an educational technology consultant to schools. I am also a storyteller and agree with you wholeheartedly. Technology is a tool, just as pencils and paper were when they were introduce to education. Tools are only as effective as the people that use them. In order for technology to be effective teachers need to be trained. And money should be invested in that training, as much as is invested for the technology. But the bottom line is that a good teacher is a good teacher. And good teachers are what drive educational improvement. Give them better tools and they will use them. Poor teachers, no matter what tools, technology, training you give them, will not change anything.
That would be I’m not a ludite.
Make that Luddite. Eventually I get it right.
The most effective, and expensive, technology we have is a human being. I think the unspoken savings being touted here is the expense of actually paying people. We are also, I think, dealing with techno-myopia. When I talk to students about technology, very few are able to identify a pencil, or a piece of string, as technology – yet they have stood the test of time.
Now that my daughter is in high school, technology plays a larger role in her education. It’s great that she can research subjects on the Internet instead of looking at a ten-year-old encyclopedia like I had to do when I was in high school. She can word-process her assignments, which helps her edit her own work and helps to ensure that the teacher can read it. Still, if given the choice, I would rather see money spent for more support for teachers (and retaining teachers that are being laid off!). The technologies we use can take us to amazing places, but they can’t convey how we humans interact with the natural world, which is the most important connection. Sometimes it becomes difficult to remember that the technology is a tool; an end to a means, and not the end in itself.
Greg Brown says it well in his song “Two Little Feet”:
“John Muir walked away into the mountains
in his old overcoat a crust of bread in his pocket
we have no knowledge and so we have stuff and
stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there”
We have to have that knowledge and and know how to use it, not in cyberspace, but in the space around us.
Okay, this is something where I really have a professional stake. I’m an astronomer (promise the moon and stars anyone?), a science educator, and a storyteller. So, Bill has really hit the trifecta here, with me.
I have to agree on mistrusting the effort to beat our problems with technology. Computer technology is a great enabling tool, but we have to make serious decisions about what we are enabling and what we are willing to do to make it valuable. Computers seem like a way to save money, because expensive things like chemicals and physics experiments and frog dissections can be simulated in a computer, saving the cost of laboratory facilities and materials. The problem is, *anything* can be simulated in a computer — just watch a modern special-effects extravaganza to see that. Laboratories are about an encounter with reality, unfiltered by websites or computers or textbooks or even well-meaning teachers who may not understand the lab too well, themselves. Use a computer as an inexpensive and lightweight way to keep textbooks handy and up-to-date and to access the latest thinking on a science experiment, but let reality be the means for experiments.
Computers are very popular to dump onto school districts, because they are easily quantifiable — “you can see that our district cares, because we bought a slick new computer for every student.” What they rarely provide is the training that teachers need to learn how to be truly comfortable with that new technology and to make it a valuable adjunct to the classroom. Teachers need more than just an introductory seminar, they need time to practice and become proficient, and that means paying them for non-instructional time. Not many districts are willing to do that. It’s obvious to most people that youngsters are great at adopting new technology faster than their teachers and elders, but that adoption is driven by the things that students already are interested in — it’s not guided by what the student may need to learn in order to better navigate the intellectual labyrinth of modern society. Want to learn sports scores? You’ll figure out how to get them. Need to learn how to critically distinguish between lies and an earnest attempt to deduce truth? Umm, maybe not so good.
I’m an Apple devotee. The great thing about the iPad and its ilk is that Apple really knocks itself out with people-centered design, to make the operation of the device so intuitive that you know how to use it, instinctually. I think that’s wonderful. But it doesn’t help one tiny little bit when a student needs to learn how to do real research online, or discern when a website is loaded with propaganda. That takes a teacher, and that takes time. The unifying attribute of education reform efforts seems always to be to try to find a way to get the same results we have now — or maybe something almost but not quite as good — for a lot less money. No one ever seems interested in spending the same money we are spending now (or maybe even more!) in order to get better results from a new way of doing things. Good teaching takes good teachers. I’d rather have a great teacher than a boatload of computers.
Thanks, Tim. Some of what you say is very much related to thoughts by Matthew Crawford in his really interesting book, “Shopcraft as Soulcraft”. Crawford talks about how hands-on education and work challenges the mind in a ways purely theoretical knowledge can’t.
If every student has an Ipad it will narrow the gap between ricj & poor because right now only my rich students can afford the insanely expensive texts… then on that Ipad they can find all the Tellers in the land – they can bring up The Odyssey & dive into it – then hear it live. All technology is only as good as the input; but when it works it is fantastic: like being able to read this or being able to home film my rojects & edit on lap-top, impossiblly ex[ensive & hard just a decade ago… so enjoy it & forget about the ludites & keep on tellin, sebastian.
Of course they believe in what they’re doing – as did the cigarette companies! But that aside I think technology is brilliant, but what I cannot understand and constantly feel is over looked is the amount of research done on storytelling and how THAT DOES improve test scores across the board. it doesn’t cost thousands in training, it is one on one, which HAS to be the best (and soulful) way of teaching and yet, as far as I know, there is not one storyteller working full time for a school district, let alone school. It is a capitalist society and therefore money and shiny objects wins out over what has been tested and is true. Things do need to change, so … Advocate storytelling – Advocate storytelling – Advocate story… And use technology.
Here in the UK there was a big government push to get computers into schools a few years ago, but driven more by politics (Tony Blair’s ‘education, education, education’ mantra) than any manufacturers pushing (although I suspect there was probably quite a lot of that in the background, as well). There was also a whole slew of initiatives aimed at moving learning online in one way or another.
I’m a storyteller, but I’m also a digital artist and animator/film-maker, so I work both sides of the fence, so to speak. I spend a lot of time in schools, mainly junior, but some senior also, and my experience is that the adoption of technology is very patchy. Even when schools have the resources whether they make good, creative use of them seems to depend almost entirely on whether they have a technology advocate on the team, and how effective that person is at bringing other people along with them. It’s still very common to find teachers using a computer/projector/whiteboard mainly as a very big tv and little more; they’re happy to leave the complicated stuff to the one or more specialists on the staff who understand it.
In one way, I find this reassuring, as I completely agree that good teachers are the most precious resource any school possesses, but it’s also depressing when I’m trying to help them use what technology they do have in the most creative way.
From what you’re all saying here it seems like Apple have been smart enough to realise that they need to create advocates…it’s a fine line between advocates and evangelists, though…
I can’t help thinking there’s a deeper current underlying all of this, though – about control and freedom. Conventional education, even when it’s well practiced, requires a solid foundation of boundaries and control. In order to be able to establish boundaries within a subject, you have to understand the geography (for want of a better phrase), and I’ve yet to see anything which leads me to believe that educators at any level really (practical, theoretical or political) understand the geography of planet computer.
Good points, Allan. Maybe learning is going to take place out of schools in the long run (or in a way different kind of classroom) and Ivan Illich was right. And I think you’re right that it’s patchy. I am no fan of regimentation, and it may be that technology offers a chance to allow kids to pursue learning at their own pace. in their own ways. (This leaves open the question of what we can learn together) The way it’s going down now, it seems to me more about ignoring the teachers and assuming everyone will get all that technology. And there has been a general move (from my point of view) to make teachers follow the same methodologies more and more within districts, as if there were one way to learn. Jay’s point above is pretty perceptive, which is what I’d expect from Jay.
As always, thought provoking. I think there is too much emphasis on teaching and not enough on learning. Today’s kids have all ready learned more than teachers can teach about technology. Tech won’t become a viable tool in the classroom until this generation of digital natives enters the classroom from the faculty door.
Kids will certainly have learned more (and faster) about how to *use* technology than the majority of their teachers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve actually done anything other than acquired a different set of functional skills. Just because you know how to form letters on a page, doesn’t mean to say you have learnt much about language use, or have anything worth saying.
To move beyond functional skills to a deeper understanding requires critical thinking and other complex conceptual tools – no-one has (yet) found a better way of imparting these than teaching them. There don’t seem to be any tricks or short-cuts.
Not enough emphasis on the right kind of teaching, I think, and never mind the shiny toys for the time being (and I’m as much a tech-head as the next man)
Bill,
I have no technological expertise or am I currently directly involved in the education field. But I think there is one more elephant in the room. When we were young the phrase “turn on, tune in, and drop out” reflected the disaffection our generation felt with the societal expectations placed on us as we moved into our teens and began to consider adulthood.
Technology offers youngsters the opportunity to plug in and drop out. There has been much said about the problems kids now have communicating with each other. When we chose in whatever way we did to “drop out” it was on some level (maybe) a concious political choice, and not the path of the least electronic resistance. If there is a barrier to communicating with others, with feeling connected to others a dangerous sort of alienation can take place.
It’s not just about what is being learned at school, it is also knowing how to feel like you are part of a community. If you feel you are part of a community, your choices will reflect this awareness. If not you will make your choices in an isolation that may only disconnect you further. Remember Columbine? I don’t think one kid can shoot another if that kid is aware of his connection to the larger community.
I may be wrong about this, I am not an expert in any of this areas. But when I consider the vastness of the internet and the complexity of using technnology, how this can absorb out time connecting to it instead of connecting to each other, I see in front of me a very little Hobbit named Frodo seeing for the first time the walls of Mordor.
Claudia,
I certainly see your point and feel your concern. Technology does give kids an easy way to check out, and many take advantage of it. However, I think the bigger problem is one of “purpose”. If we look at what has happened in the Middle East during the “Arab Spring” (summer, fall?) we see technology serving as the tool to build a community of purpose, a community that, at least within their own culture, has changed the direction of countries, regions, and maybe the globe. Without those young people being connected as a community through technology, the change doesn’t happen. It is a complicated issue with many facets. Perhaps the question is, “How do we provide young people more opportunities to participate in meaningful action?” or “Do we want young people to wield that level of influence?”
jay
I had just read this article in the Smithsonian and then I read your blog. I found the two interesting when put together.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html
Not a word about technology in this article.
I am a total gear head, I love technology…even addicted a bit, and I know that it has it’s place in education…but state of the art will never replace state of the heart. It is in the heart of the child that a love for learning first blossoms. Teachers reach the heart.