True story I heard second-hand today:
In a planning meeting for state educational technology leaders recently, one attendee actually said “Why in the world would anyone over the age of 30 want to text message on a phone?”
If teaching is an exchange of ideas, the ways that people convey their thoughts in this day and age — text messages, podcasts, the Internet, instant messaging — must find a place in the modern classroom.
If we don’t do it, who is going to teach our students to leverage the technologies they already use for 24/7/365 learning? (I know…another rhetorical question.)
(Thanks to Christian Long for the link.)
I posted a short snippet yesterday on a visit to Upper Arlington in Ohio to visit a 1:1 pilot. The kids talked about how much more creative the technology let them be in explaining their thinking….if it is the conduit for more metacongnition……what is the fuss?
I think that perhaps it is not a rhetorical question. I have been reading Tom Haskins (http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-changes-come-about.html)lately. He has some relevant remarks about how changes “come about”–nice sailing metaphor there. He has gotten me to thinking about the difference between continuous and discontinuos learning systems.
If I understand this idea properly, I think it provides a potential model for change in education. What we are looking for with webbed learning is a way to break with the rules of the old skool and simultaneously solve the “problems” posed by these new learnings (text messages, podcasts, the Internet, instant messaging) “without more of the same†(emphasis mine).I have sounded this out before as “the old wine in new bottles” puzzle.
The personal problem I have with using web X.x is that I am mostly substituting digital paper for dead trees. I know there is much more to this technology as is evidenced by the bubbling cauldron of the Internet, specifically text messaging and augmented realities and synthetic worlds and mashups out the wazoo. I see this brave new world, yet I do not see. I have not yet completely cast off the filters of my own industrialized teaching and learning. I need something to destroy what I know without killing what I am. The paradox is that we need to institutionalize this idea. I can’t think of anything further from the minds of most k-12 administrators.
Back to the rhetorical question. If we don’t do it, then don’t worry about it. Somebody else will do it. They are in fact doing it as we fiddle away in our learning bunkers. They are not even bothering to engage us in battle because, good Internet warriors that they are, they simply route around the faulty node. This is the radical promise of Web X.x and the one that seems such a will o’ the wisp to me right now.
I didn’t miss the point of the blog post, because you’re talking about being dismissive of technology that is important to students.
But… I think texting is one of those technologies, like ring tones, that may be obsolete in a few years. Texting is going to become more like instant messaging and our students will be using Mp3s for ringtones. We should definitely be dealing with MySpace, Instant Messaging, and email as avenues of literacy and learning.
I too think that texting is really So What? technology. Nothing particularly essential about it. I could use it, of course… while it still exists in its present form… after all, my students pass notes with it already. There’s a logic game in there somewhere… they could use it in orienteering, as a tool for a solve a mystery game of some sort, as part of a contest… etc. But, it’s not on my top ten must do list.
I think your right, I’m just thinking texting is going to be obsolete. We should try working with some mobile technology though.
Um. Texting is the dominant way that my students communicate when they’re not in front of each other — and I’ve known then to use texts when they’re in the same room — and think I’m not paying attention.
Whether or not it’s irrelevant in a few years, it’s completely relevant now. We need to pay attention. The tools of text messaging are already beginning to be, and will soon become, mainstream ways to participate in both the commerce of language and products.
For many of my students, the cell phone is an umbilical to their brain. Why wouldn’t I want to figure out a way to tap into that steady stream of constant attention?
Until people have a need to use technology (text message) they can not be bothered. If a situation comes up and the tool fits, people will use it. Here is an example, my neighbor and I did not really have a need to text message until this week. Earlier in week, she dropped off one of her kids at 6:00 am and continued onto the emergency room (he son was having stomach severe abdominal pains and required surgery. After a few hours I wanted to call her but did not want to be intrusive. Her daughter was in the back seat of the car and I said, I wish your mom knew how to text message so I could check on her. She does, I taught her last night just incase she needed to update me. We were able to text message during the day.
The same is true with most technologies that we use in school. I installed skype with a half dozen teachers last month, we then integrate it into our day. We need to stop thinking about technology as a gadget thing and continue to encourage teachers to use it.
I’m not on board when it comes to texting as a tool for learning. Texting is a personal way of communication across distances. We already have valid and feasbile tools to do this in the form of e-mail and others. But why would a student need MY cell phone number to text me when they could just e-mail me?
And why would a student need another student’s cell number? It seems like a real invasion of personal space.
“Whether or not it’s irrelevant in a few
years, it’s completely relevant now. We need to pay attention.”
I think this kind of mindset gets educators and inventors stuck in fads. The questions to be asked are: 1) Is it valid and feasible? and 2) can it stand the long haul?