Here’s your Friday moment of EduZen to think about over the weekend. As always, would love your thoughts:
Neil Postman in The End of Education (1995);
What we needed to know about cars–as we need to know about computers, television, and other important technologies–is not how to use them but how they use us. In the case of cars, what we needed to think about in the early twentieth century was not how to drive them but what they would do to our air, our landscape, our social relations, our family life, and our cities. Suppose that in 1946, we had started to address similar questions about television: What would be its effects on our political institutions, our psychic habits, our children, our religious conceptions, our economy? Wouldn’t we be better positioned today to control television’s massive assault on American culture?
I am talking here about making technology itself an object of inquiry, so that Little Eva and Young John in using technologies will not be used or abused by them, so that Little Eva and Young John become more interested in asking questions about the computer than in getting answers from it.
I am not arguing against using computers in school. I am arguing against our sleepwalking attitudes toward it, against allowing it to distract us from more important things, against making a god of it.
What questions should we be asking about our technologies?
Has the investment in school technology been a waste ?
Thinking about my role as a first grade teacher with a smart board and smart table in my classroom, I do not think that this technology itself is a waste. However, my school invested a lot of grant money into these technologies with very little investment into teacher and student training of these technologies. I wanted into my classroom having access to so much great stuff to help my students, but I had no idea how to best utilize it, so in the end that up front investment was wasteful.
I definitely agree. As a classroom teacher, schools do so much to invest in the latest technologies, yet they do not take the time to train teachers on how to use these wonderful tools. Often times, the technology sits in the classroom with tons of dust. Often times there have been excuses that their is not enough time to implement technology into lessons. Many teachers fail to realize that these tools can help enhance student learning and make things easier.
Yes, I have to admit, I have used the time argument as well. I think my first couple years teaching I was afraid of giving my first graders “control” of expensive technology. But, in truth, if I took the time to teach them how to use it properly like I teach them to walk in line, this could have easily been worked in. I am slowly learning and giving my kids even more opportunities.
I believe the turnover rate for technology can sometimes make it a “waste.” Technology is constantly evolving that it is difficult to keep up with the latest designs. When schools invest in classroom and schoolwide sets of certain technologies (i.e. MacBooks, Chromebooks, Smartboards, etc.), we have to accept the fact that these technological tools will soon be considered “old” within the year.
Since majority of schools invest in a lot of technologies but put “very little investment into teacher and student training of these technologies,” as Leigh Hill put it, these technological investments soon become a “waste” because they have not been used to the full capacity that they are capable of in the classroom.
I saw your title before I read your post, and I was going to post this exact quote as s response. I read this book with my seminar class.
I would be asking what are we sacrificing with the seemingly convenient use of Facebook as a space for learning?
This idea of a “sleepwalking attitude” towards using technology in the classroom seems really profound to me. Especially thinking about teaching young children and the use of technology, it seems more energy goes into entertaining rather than teaching, where some teachers, even myself on occasion, would use technology as a crutch when we ran out of time in class or failed to effectively engage our students in a concept.
Hi Leigh,
I must admit that I have definitely used technology as a crutch when I ran out of time in class. However, technology is a powerful tool to assess students’ learning and teach effectively.
There is a new app called “Poll Everywhere,” where students can use their cellphones in class to respond to questions teachers pose to their students. This is a great tool to assess students’ understanding on a particular topic.
Ironically, many schools like mine ban cellphones. However, these technologies can play a major role on students’ experience in learning.
HI Ashley,
What a wonderful idea? I have not heard of “Poll Everywhere” but I am interested in checking it out. I am always finding ways to implement technology into my lessons. However, this may be difficult to use if not all students have access to cellphones or if they are banned from schools.
That is an important note to make that not all students have access to cellphones! I can recall student two students in my advisory that do not have cellphones.
This does sound like a great idea. My school also bans cell phones, but my students have chrome books for their computer science class, so I could utilize something like that!
Due technology, students can find information from anywhere. I think the important question we should ask ourselves is “are we educating our students to check the validity of sources where they find their answers?” We are at a time where we ourselves can put any information online freely.
YES YES YES!!!