The chief result is education’s insistence upon immediacy that sacrifices substance and depth. In other words, schools are looking for a quick solution that imparts knowledge with little effort. Educational leaders are extolling the virtues of technology, claiming that equipping students with electronic tools will increase learning. Teachers are expected and sometimes required to use smart boards, power point, e-books and other technological means that will presumably “reach” students. Such action threatens academic achievement because it emphasizes the conduit at the expense of content.
Don’t get me wrong. Anyone who criticizes technology (or money) has never been without it. Technology is a marvelous tool. It’s almost as fun as it is useful. I made fun of Facebook (“Last night, ate at McDonald’s; right now I’m feeding my dog; in fifteen minutes I leave for work”) until I saw how satisfying it was to catch up with old friends. Now I have more Facebook friends than I could ever catch up with, though I solemnly swear that I will never write to tell any of them that I just swatted a fly.
Yes, technology has affected teaching and learning in many positive ways, but has also negated much that is valuable. Anybody who observes students using technology can see that it is often a distraction from the hard work of learning. Despite its bells and whistles, or perhaps because of them, it has rendered students incapable of quietly communing with knowledge. Whether a student is studying history or an automotive manual, a measure of quiet contemplation is necessary, but technology doesn’t foster or even permit quiet contemplation. It is always overly visual and rapid. No wonder students like it. No wonder educators think students are being “reached.” They are being reached alright, but by the visual, sensory overload, not the content.
Recently two famous people repeated the mantra that technology will get us to the Promised Land. Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, in an article titled “A Digital Promise to Our Nation’s Children,” claimed that equipping every public school student with electronic tools would vastly improve learning in the U.S. That notion didn’t work out so well a few years ago in Cobb County when a school superintendent proposed that Cobb students be provided laptop computers. Our techno-savvy community rejected the idea.
In a similar article titled “The Steve Jobs Model for Education Reform,” media mogul Rupert Murdock argued that we must “use technology to force the education system to meet the needs of the individual student.” He added that old-fashioned textbooks “are outdated the moment they are printed.” One hopes that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Adam Smith are not offended. Jefferson’s many thoughtful essays, Madison’s Federalist Papers, and Adam Smith’s celebration of capitalism (The Wealth of Nations) demand more than dancing images. They demand that a student quietly commune with the ideas they present.
Digital technology has unquestionably transformed business, finance, and manufacturing. It has aided schools in record keeping and many other non-academic functions. One would be hard pressed, however, to show that technology itself has enhanced actual learning. Putting computers and e-books in front of an unwilling student is no more effective than Lincoln and his log or his fireplace.
One example of technological overreach is the teaching of speech online. A student in a local college recently came to me for help with an online speech class assignment. When I asked her how one could learn to give speeches online instead of in front of a group, she replied that she was allowed to tape herself giving her speeches at home and then email them to her professor. So much for learning the dynamics of actually speaking in front of breathing human beings.
Physicist Jonathan Katz, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, is highly critical of education’s wrongheaded technology use. Taking exception to Secretary Duncan and Murdock, Katz claims that neither of them understands the role of technology in education: “A well-thought-out textbook or a live classroom discussion does a much better job of conveying understanding than anything that can be done with technology,” he writes. Katz is a science educator as well as the father of five.
A 14-year-old boy can help create a child, but that doesn’t mean he should. Technology can perform phenomenal tasks, but that doesn’t mean we should employ it for every endeavor. Education’s so-called “Digital Promise” will never deliver. It’s too non-human.
Roger Hines of Kennesaw is a retired high school teacher and former state legislator.
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People seem to be missing the point surrounding all of this. Think of a carpenter... He has a tool belt filled with different tools for different jobs. He may have a brand new shiny screwdriver in his tool belt, but he certainly wouldn't use that screwdriver to pound a nail into a piece of wood. He would use the hammer that he also has in his tool belt. But he would definitely want that screwdriver when there was a screw to put in.
Teaching is the same way. Good teachers have many tools at their disposal to educate young minds. Chalk talk, lecture, discussion, close readings, hands on projects, and the like. The more diverse the tools, the better the job that he/she can do. Technology is just another TOOL in the pouch. Some people go overboard when they get new things in the classroom. Its only natural. I can just hear them now..."It's NEW. We must USE it to justify the expense to my district." What some fail to grasp is that you don't need to beat the tech usage until its a dead horse. You just use it when its appropriate. The job of a teacher is to understand when to use the right tool for the job. If the tool is a piece of technology, Yippie! If its a paper and pencil, Yay for that as well. They can both live in the same classroom and work together. They do in mine.
I am going to guess that you are making claims with no backing. You clearly have no grasp of research or statistics. Once you are able to tell bring real student data to the table to argue why any of your claims are true then I will actually take you seriously.
However, I would not agree that "One would be hard pressed, however, to show that technology itself has enhanced actual learning." Properly used, technology can enhance learning and this has been shown in many cases. In my case, I would point to the use of computer technology to allow students to investigate more thoroughly and effectively than ever possible before, many of the STEM concepts I teach.
The key of course, remains in the teacher and the school system. Lousy teachers will just mask their incompetence behind a piece of whiz-bang technology. Lousy school systems will try to use technology simply to reduce costs or to appear cutting edge to the public. Good teachers working in good systems will leverage appropriate technology for increased learning.
You even said it in your article, "Digital technology has unquestionably transformed business, finance, and manufacturing." Don't we want our students to succeed in these areas? Shouldn't we be teaching students how to use technology to not only post to Facebook, but how to work on a class project using a Wiki?
I admit, I work in the area of technology, teaching and learning, and my children attend a public school in Cobb. But although you speak about technology and students, don't forget about the other part of the teaching and learning equation - the teachers. We need to be support teachers in the area of technology too, to help in the successful use of these technology tools and methods.
As we always try to remind our clients (teachers and students), it's never technology for technology sake, it should always be technology for learning's sake.
Rather than just focus on the utilitarian aspects of technology, sophisticated learning algorithms now both diagnose and focus learning specific to each student's needs RATHER than the old system of all students being run through exactly the same, one-size-fits-all textbook exercises and blackboard examples offered by the teachers.
Instead, our students classroom experiences are being supplemented by closed-loop feedback software packages that (1) instruct (2) evaluate (3) adjust the instruction based on the results of the evaluations...on a student by student basis.
In this way, each student is afforded the opportunity to focus on areas where their learning experience is not complete and truly learning the material before being pushed into the next rote classroom exercise.
You are describing technology as it should be used and indeed is used in many places. Help me, though, as I discourage its unwise use: for babysitting, for "research" that seldom takes students to definitive sources,for Wikipedia, and other such things for which students need so much to be taught discernment. Keep up your good work with technology! Doesn't sound like you are what I'm complaining about.
So, kind of like a good teacher, only it doesn't know you . . . and can't talk to you about the myriad and complex reasons why you aren't learning or keeping up . . . and it can't give you career and college advice . . . or write you a letter of recommendation . . . or help you learn how to interact with others appropriately . . . or let your parents know what they can do to help . . . or help you discover that your life isn't over even if your boyfriend just dumped you . . . or talk to you about the complex connections between what you've just learned and your job, car, plumbing, classmate's handicap, neighborhood, daily newspaper headlines . . . or thoughtfully grade your constructed response question to see what nuances of misconception caused you to not get the right answer . . . or introduce you to a friend who is in the career you are interested in . . . I could go on and on, but I'm stopping at just the stuff that happened in my classroom this morning.