New Class(room) War: Teacher vs. Technology – New York Times
- Quote: “All the advances schools and colleges have made to supposedly enhance
learning — supplying students with laptops, equipping computer labs,
creating wireless networks — have instead enabled distraction. Perhaps
attendance records should include a new category: present but otherwise
engaged.”Note: I actually met a high school principal in Ohio last week who encouraged his teachers to tell kids “Turn your phones ON!” when they come to class. Not as in start making all sorts of phone calls, but as in let’s learn how we can use our phones (since just about every student had one at his school) to extend what we’re doing in class. We can try to fight this, I suppose, as many schools are. Or, we can try to inculcate appropriate use from early on by modeling our own cell phone use to access infromation and learn throughout the curriculum. Bottom line is yep, this is a much more distract-able world. We have to somehow find strategies to teach our kids to use cell phones and computers and the like in effective ways, and we also have to bend our thinking a bit in terms of what we ask our kids to do in classrooms in the first place.
– post by willrich
Wow. I was just reading that article, and then I came across your blog while researching student use of technology and how it impacts the classroom. I’m giving a presentation on it to my Cohort in my BEd program. I don’t know what I the answer is to this issue, but I do know that it’s not going away, so we can’t just treat it like a phase.
“The fact is, we’re not here to entertain. We’re here to stimulate the life of the mind.”
I wonder what mind he thinks he’s trying to stimulate.
The phones seem like an inevitable and logical school tool for the classes of the 2019+/-. What in the world might that professional development look like?
Many of my fifth graders have phones in their backpacks or in their pockets. Their parents want to be able to contact their children anywhere. This makes sense and provides comfort. The policy is to not bring cell phones to school. I tell the students to make sure they are turned off.
Here’s a fun, educational use of technology Asia KML tours.
What kid doesn’t love Google Earth? Today (well Sunday, technically) marks the beginning of Geography Awareness Week, an annual event organized by National Geographic to highlight the role that geographical knowledge plays in preparing people for success in an increasingly interdependent and interconnected world. This year, we’ve created a series of KML tours to educate students about Asia. Today we’re featuring the Ultimate Asia Challenge, an interactive quiz. What better way to keep the kids occupied on a day off from school?
I say we call a cease fire to this tech war and admit that the natives are winning. It’s time that teachers wake up and realize that the only way to reach today’s student is to meet them on their own playing field. The author’s tone within the NY Times article is one that is all too familiar throughout the world of education. Teacher’s feel they must fight the use of technology rather than embrace it themselves. They need to look beyond themselves as the “givers of knowledge” and attempt to understand that their students actions are a plea for change. Professor Bugeja claims that education requires contemplation and critical thinking and implies that technology doesn’t encourage this. I suppose he’s not much of a blogger who reads and discerns good information from bad and then puts his opinions into writing. (No critical thinking involved, right?)
I’m sure he would not be in favor of classroom blocks of cell phones, either, to be used for data collection, organization of information, and audio and video production.
On a personal note: I wouldn’t be disappointed if my children grew up to be air traffic controllers. We need those too!!!
Ewan McIntosh’s recent commentary on The Illiterates of the 21st Century is a nice counterpoint to Freedman’s heavy-handed column.
I am the founder of a non-profit organization that focuses on entrepreneurship and real estate investing. I believe that we have lost control of these situations in school.
Our children are there to learn. However I do believe in teaching them to be ready for the real world also. Some teachers may have never been in the real world themselves. Why aren’t we teaching the next generations how to read a mortgage or balance a checkbook?
May be the recipe for disaster.
Dylan Tanaka
http://www.REIAofMacomb.com
Thanks for taking the time to talk a little more about this post with us during our SUNY Cortland Skype session in Dr. Stearns’ class last week! It was an honor! Sofia Rittenhouse
I agree with Noah.
I remembered seeing this article and almost could not stop myself from laughing. This is yet another example of someone, in this case the media, who does not understand the application of technology like this in the classroom and does their best to try and focus on the negatives. But I agree with you that by placing this on students from the forefront of their educational careers, there would definitely be a much less likely chance of this becoming a distraction.
I am currently in my 10th year of teaching and returning to the classroom to take my first class on technology in education. Over the last 10 years I have seen such a shift in the way that content standards are prsented to our children. I have, for years, been one of the seceptics when it came to technology in the classroom. I still in no way see technology as a replacemtn for good quality teaching and a qualified, enthusiastic, exceptional educator. Taking a technology in education course has shifted how I feel about tehnology. I agree that
there are abuses in the system and “cheating with technology” (or without) should not be tolerated. I agree, that in some cases, students and even adults use technology inappropriately at times. This still should not be the primary focus of giving up on it all together. There are still wonderful websites, educators, and students who do such wonderful things with technology. There are great websites and technological inovative materials that can help our children in their understanding or state content standards and grade level requirements. Technology is a “tool” that can enhance and improve the way that teachers present to the various learning needs of our students. Technology is not the enemy. We have to educate our teachers and learners about how to use technology in a positive and helpful manner. Students and educators need to be aware of rules and consequences that are expected when using technology in the classroom. Districts need to be very clear and inform their community “only appropriate use of technology will be tolerated”. Our school district even has teachers and students sign an agreement/usage form at the beninging of every school year. teachers and students also need a support system and frequent instruction about new technology available and how it is to be used. Technology is like a key. Just giving teachers and students a “key” and not telling them what it is for is unacceptable. I can empathize wih the man who took a hammer to the cell phone. Learning new things and trying to teach in a way that is out of our comfort zone can be maddening and exhausting. However, if you step out of your comfort zone, sometimes you open yourself up to new and wonderful learning and teaching possibiliites.
Having been a high school math teacher for 11 years, I have been torn between the “old school” methods of how we were taught as youths and then again as prospective teachers and the sudden burst of technology in the educational world.
I never really thought a great deal about cell phone use as an instructional tool in the classroom and I am not sure I believe that its positives outweigh the negatives. There is a fine line between teaching tool and distraction when it comes to using technology in the classroom. Although there are some creative ideas with using cell phones in the classroom, I would still consider them to be more of a detriment than an aid. One of the disturbing trends that I notice in the classroom is my student’s inability to communicate using the written word, as well as verbally. Since text messaging has taken on a language of its own, students have not been properly educated that this type of writing should be limited to informal messaging and not to formal types of pieces such as letters or reports. In addition, partially because of the use of “messaging,†children have lost their ability to converse with each other and with adults. Using a cell phone or computer provides information in a quick, easy fashion, but somewhere along the way, children have lost that personal touch that only comes with human interaction.
From a different perspective I have become a huge supporter of using computers in the classroom. I have been trying to incorporate more technology into the existing lessons that I currently use in the classroom. In an age when the internet is the most commonly used tool by our students to obtain information, students not only enjoy using the internet in school, but they also can gain a unique learning perspective that may not be capable in a regular classroom.
All in all, technology may not be second nature to today’s teachers, but it has become a vital tool in the lives of our students. To provide our students with the best education possible, we need to provide a balance to not only show students the educational value of technology, but we also need to educate them in its proper uses.