Technology For Its Own Sake
About eight years ago I spent a couple of years teaching high school. Being a nurse, and coming into the experience with no real educational background it was quite an interesting, and eye-opening experience. Needless to say, I probably learned more than my students did. One of the things that left me scratching my head was the approach the school system took toward education. Tons of money was spent on technology and teachers were required to have at least one “technology lesson” each week. That lesson had to be so designated on your weekly lesson plan. Talk about misguided! As I write this I still see a lot of the same things happening in education — at all levels. And it’s just plain dumb. Let’s explore this a bit.
Build It and They Will Come
Let’s suppose, for a moment, that I’m running a for profit business. Where and when I spend money is determined by the needs that spending that money will meet. Outside of research and development it is unlikely that I would spend large sums of money on equipment and software for which I don’t already have a defined purpose. Stating that a bit differently, purchases are driven by the need the purchase will meet. A businessman would be foolish to spend large sums of money on a piece of equipment then turn to his staff and say, “well, here it is. Figure out how we can use it!” But that’s what schools do.
One of the metrics used to judge school systems, apparently, is the technology available within the system. Thus, IT leaders in education become focused on procuring equipment and software that they can then point to as evidence of their “forward thinking” and/or their technologic support of the classroom.
So, often that technology sits in the classroom unused. Why? Three reasons:
1. The technology is purchased without a clear purpose in mind. No one asks the question: What instructional need is this purchase fulfilling? With no clear instructional purpose, the equipment is simply not used.
2. While money was spent to buy the equipment and software, little or no money is spent to train teachers to use it. Shown how to use the technology, and how it can be beneficial in the classroom, I think many teachers would be accepting of new technologies. However, this is seldom done. They’re left to their own motivation. That leads us to the third problem.
3. Teachers already have a lot on their plates. They have no motivation to learn new technologies that may not have value in their classrooms. That is, with so many competing priorities in teaching today, teachers don’t want to spend time trying to learn a technology that may not be of benefit in moving them toward the goal of educating their students.
IT directors in schools should be educators and they should be capable of evaluating the utility of the technologies in the classroom setting. Purchases should be driven not by a desire to “look good” on some report, or by a desire to “try out” new technologies, but by the need in the classroom. Interestingly, it seems that often the decisions are made without input from teachers and when teachers do make recommendations, or requests for specific technologies, their input is ignored or minimized. Heaven forbid that a faculty member should request software, or access to an online technology that they have determined would be beneficial to their classroom. Their request may well be denied. After all, who are they to evaluate software? And, there’s likely to be no money in the budget for such requests.
Technology for Technology’s Sake
As I note above, the idea of having at least one “technology lesson plan” each week is equally ludicrous. Technology should always be the tool to achieving an outcome. Unless you’re teaching a technology course, the technology should not be the focus. Like buying equipment without a purpose, using technology (or requiring its use) when it contributes little to the outcomes is ridiculous for several reasons:
1. Not all topics benefit from the use of technology. As adjunctive activities technology-based activities might have a place in some classrooms. For example, using storyboarding software to create a storyboard of a reading in a literature class might be beneficial in reinforcing what is learned. On the other hand, simply having the student prepare a PowerPoint on the topic likely does no more for learning than having them take notes. Why not just have them take notes, instead of introducing the complexity of the software into the equation?
2. Teachers seldom have the level of skill needed to teach students how to use the technology— I”m an English teacher, not a computer teacher, for example.
3. A corollary to #2 is that students are often significantly more sophisticated in their ability to use current technologies than are their teachers. So, the teacher assigns the creation of a PowerPoint (which students have now done hundreds of times) and the student is bored. Why not allow the student to select a technology to use to present an idea? I’m betting theirs would be much more interesting.
I’m sure there are other reasons, but I’ll let you add them.
The point in all of this is that technology is, and should be seen as, a tool in the teacher’s toolbox. You would never hand someone a wrench and tell them to figure out how to build a house with it. Neither should you demand that teachers use a specific technology in their classrooms. Teachers should always be free to choose the tools that best meet the needs of the classroom. But, to help them understand the tools available to them, they should be properly trained in the use of all their tools, not just a few. Finally, teachers should feel free to request and be allowed to use whatever resources they feel best meet the needs of their classroom. It should never be the IT director’s decision on what is appropriate for the classroom.