As much as I agree with my friend Chris Lehmann that “technology should be like oxygen: ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible,” we’re still a ways off from all of that. But if I forced you to choose the one of those three adjectives that we’re struggling with the most in schools, which would you select?
I think I might go with “necessary.” Seriously, how much of our practice in classrooms to we absolutely need technology to accomplish? Looking stuff up on the Google has pretty much replaced traditional research, no doubt. But beyond that? Is technology necessary to create the things we ask kids to create? (It might be more so if we dealt with things kids asked to create.) We could still do grades, take attendance, all the stuff the typical LMS stuff serves up. (We did all that before the LMS, remember.) And it’s nice to collaborate on Google Docs, but we did that before the Internet as well. Digital textbooks? To me, that’s all pretty ordinary stuff.
Technology should allow us to do the extraordinary, right? To connect live or asynchronously with people from all over the world. To publish stuff to a global audience. To make things, programs, artifacts, inventions that can’t be made in the analog world. To write in multimedia. To remix and create in new ways. To do “extra” stuff that you can’t do without the technology. That should be the bar.
I’m reminded of that when people start talking about Chromebooks and one to one programs. The price of Chromebooks can make the technology ubiquitous. And the low maintenance part can make it nearly invisible (though that has more to do with culture than technology.) And those are good steps.
What’s interesting is when I ask people who currently have MacBooks or full-fledged Windows laptops whether they would swap that device for a Chromebook, no one ever volunteers. That suggests that we know what we’re giving kids isn’t extraordinary. We’re pretty much making the ordinary digital.
Seriously, would love people to prove me wrong about that.
(Image credit: Ant Standring)
the only piece I have wondered about is the over-selling of a “global audience.” The odds are not many people are going to to be viewing or reading a 10 years old’s blog or youtube channel (although I know there are a few exceptions). I am wondering if schools are helping kids connect with others to help them learn more. My son goes on You Tube to learn how to do do more things on Minecraft. How come his school never integrated this type of “reaching out” in the curriculum?
Hi Rob! While most people may not achieve global attention, teaching students how to put their ideas out there and speak their mind on a global platform is a great skill to prepare them for the future. YouTube is a great resource! If your child is looking for supplemental videos I recommend Kahn Academy or Crash Course History. Ultimately, though, I think your questions reflect the greater issue that this post is addressing–are we using our technology the way we should to help students learn more and have fun while doing it? Many teachers are, but then again, many teachers are not.
Thank you for this post! I completely agree — we should be using our technology to help our students achieve extraordinary things. I know of teachers in classrooms around the country that are doing some pretty incredible things in their classrooms that they would not be able to do without technology: flipped classrooms, online pen-pals for 2nd language learners with peers in Spain, virtual laboratories that help students conceptualize and work with scientific theories and data that they could only read about before, digital differentiation, interactive maps with a visual representation of census data changes over time… It’s enough to make my head spin! And Chromebooks are capable of doing all of those things. The significant amount of extraordinary resources online alone makes it worth the investment and I wish my school had those resources for my students.
True, I would never swap my MacBook for a Chromebook but I think that having one-to-one technology for every student is an extraordinary change that I would love to see in my classroom. I try to incorporate technology into my lessons as often as possible but my school’s MacBook carts are in constant demand. Further, I always worry that my students who cannot access technology at home are falling behind. Just having technology for all students will ensure that they are all able to develop online literacy and technological literacy. This is an extraordinary opportunity for many students because it will help prepare them to be even greater 21st century workers and contributors to society!
Maybe teachers should attend trainings on how to maximize tech in the classroom? Sometimes the sheer volume of online learning activities is overwhelming or the learning curve too difficult to then try to teach students how to use an unfamiliar platform. I have found that so many of these online resources increase engagement, help reach marginalized students, and prepare students for the digital future! I agree. The bar should be extraordinary. How could you ensure that every classroom reaches it?