So Bill Ferriter just commented on one of my blog posts and then referenced that post on his blog. For those that don’t know Bill, he writes at The Tempered Radical over at Teacher Leaders Network. I find him to be full of sage advice and was honored to be cited by him. Our posts were essentially about the role of technology in our lives (and specifically within the field of education, as we’re both practitioners). I’m going to attempt some expansion of my views a bit more here. Hopefully we can get somewhere.
There has been a lot of chatter lately within my blogroll about the role of technology in education, and I sense that a meme is developing regarding the appropriate level of technology in our both our lives and education.
My original point was that computers are not a culturally neutral entity and they are definitely being utilized to promote certain ideologies. And Bill is right, it isn’t an either/or situation. It’s like most other things in this world of ours: neither all good nor all bad, mostly gray. Come to think of it, bipolarization of political ideologies is a similar beast. Still, I worry about instructional technology just falling prey/reinforcing culturally dominant power structures, especially the corrosive nature of neoliberalism in education. A particularly hilarious and sad example.
In my experience, I have found that many educators are seduced by the flashiness of technology and use it sans, you know, any sense of pedagogical research or any sort of acknowledgment of hierarchies of need. It just becomes another way of doing the whole “sage on the stage” style of teaching. Funny that there isn’t much evidence that it increases achievement or learning when used that way. Wonder why that is. If that research is out there, I’d love to see it. I think Bill and I agree here.
Having said that, it really does depend on how one actually integrates technology into their classroom. One of the great things about some of the newer technologies is the provided intellectual space for students to engage and actually show some ownership for their learning. Wikis, blogs, and all that 2.0 stuff seems better suited than me just showing a PowerPoint to emphasize a science concept. It’s really all in the instructional philosophy of the teacher.
My visceral push back against all this technology is that it’s changing the way that I live my life. Work stuff is now more easily accessible at home and I never really feel like I get away from my career. Having said that, teaching is the type of calling that you can’t just leave at the door when you leave for the day. I definitely think that all this techno-saturation is having some good effects. I am way smarter in the ways of the world than ever before. I am capable of maintaining relationships over long distances with ease. I can blog my thoughts about all sorts of stuff and people actually help me learn via this type of communication. Lots of good things to be gained.
Still, I think we’re losing something important: our ability to read the natural world. Richard Louv and David Orr magnificently write about this phenomenon, especially in terms of the changing educational methodologies. When I see something like Katrina happen in our country, I fundamentally see a misunderstanding of both natural and social systems by the individuals that exist within those systems. On a smaller level, I daily teach students that have no concept of “the outside” at all. Seriously, you should see some of their faces when I show them a live bug. How basic is that? A live bug totally tweaks them out, and they often respond with a need to completely transcend that messy, beautiful, destructive reality. Katrina showed us that you cannot get away from that reality. You can only learn to exist within it. I think this is where Dina’s post about New Orleans hits it right on the head (oh, and I work with Dina, and she almost always hits it right on the head). I’m not sure an increased emphasis on technology is the solution. I’m not sure I have any real solution at this point, but my gut feeling is that we’re getting farther and farther divorced from our environmental reality, and that technology is one of the main causes. Remember that all this technology is really just a casing of petroleum surrounding some mined metal and powered by cheaply (in the short-term anyway) produced electrons. But I digress. I am an Earth Science teacher, after all.
I try to use technology to expose my students to a world that is way bigger than the one they know right now. That globalized world matters, but being able to read and engage in the local is more directly relevant. If only we could figure out a way to merge the two into something awesome (to avoid the either/or). I’m not sure we’re anywhere close to where we need to be in terms of natural literacy, and I’m not sure technology gets us any closer toward that goal, especially given today’s dominant educational rhetoric.
I don’t have to write a word about technology ever again. I’ll just refer everyone to this amazing post.
And by the way, you aren’t digressing when it comes to the environmental impact of physically manufacturing tech– one other way tech divorces us from our world.(Where *did* that Coleco-vision video game player I attached to my TV in 1984 end up?)
http://update.unu.edu/archive/issue31_5.htm
Dear Joe and Dina,
I blog with my good friend Bill Ferriter on the Teacher Leaders Network (and verbally wrestle with him every chance I get, often on the subject of technology, where we are about 90 degrees apart). I have greatly enjoyed your ongoing dialogue–smart, nuanced conversation is hard to come by in Tech World. Probably because the folks reading the blogs are generally techies, blogs sometimes feel like endless commercials for “cool stuff,” accompanied by endless back-patting. It’s refreshing to see a little thoughtfulness and discretion at work. Bravo, to you and to Bill, for deepening the dialogue.
I am a music teacher–and worry about the wonderful tradition of ordinary people making live music together. Tech tools have injected a healthy dose of real creativity into music education–it’s amazing that kids can play a tune, add harmony and timbre variety, print it up and play it, all at a single screen.
But will they stop learning to appreciate the reedy beauty of a bassoon, the majesty of a symphony orchestra, the discipline of practicing for excellence, the incredibly rich body of literature for ensemble playing? There is nothing like playing in a large musical group, one person contributing to a glorious massed chord. You can hear it digitally, day or night (and buy it for 99 cents)–but that does not compare to the satisfaction of being a cog in a human music-making group. I hate to see music reduced to a combination of individual indulgence and a spectator activity.
Gain some, lose some with every technological advance–that’s the pattern. But aren’t we smart enough to preserve what’s good? Maybe not.
I especially like what you had to say about technology reinforcing the sage on the stage model. I had a major epiphany about that while listening to Gary Stager speak a couple weeks ago. At the risk of being seen as one of those people who posts only to draw traffic to *their* blog (another tech hazard: narcissism), you might like hearing what Stager thinks about that very subject:
http://tinyurl.com/2hmv3k
Thanks for a great discussion.
Nancy Flanagan
Nancy,
Wonderful comment. Thank you. You should ask Joe why he buys vinyl most of the time.
As for me, I just came back from a visit to New Orleans, where I had the honor of sitting on the floor right in front of the performers in tiny Preservation Hall and participating in live jazz for three hours. They probably thought I was crazy, listening to “Heart and Soul” with tears running down my face, but I think it only makes your point. Our kids have a dearth of these kinds of experiences as it is, and digital can never replace them. –Dina
That was “Body and Soul” by the way– “Heart and Soul” is what my five year old is learning on the piano.(laughter)
Hey, Dina. Could be worse…your five-year old could be learning “Cat Scratch Fever” or channeling Souljah Boy. I was in Louisiana in February, and spent most of my time being alternately amazed by the richness of the culture, and p***ed off at the people simultaneously sanitizing it and exploiting it. (Don’t let your five-year old know that nice ladies say bad words, either.) Where are all the original ideas and music going to come from when the whole world thinks that American Idol represents the breadth of genres in American music?
Nancy Wrote:
Tech tools have injected a healthy dose of real creativity into music education–it’s amazing that kids can play a tune, add harmony and timbre variety, print it up and play it, all at a single screen.
But will they stop learning to appreciate the reedy beauty of a bassoon, the majesty of a symphony orchestra, the discipline of practicing for excellence, the incredibly rich body of literature for ensemble playing?
Bill Replies:
Nancy—these two paragraphs seem to disagree! Isn’t it possible that the nature of “practicing” music is just changing in a digital age?
Here’s what I mean: I’ve got a kid who completely loves Apple’s Garage Band. He sits behind his computer day and night churning out musical tracks than he then shares with our kids and with digital music forums for commentary.
Oh yeah—and he can’t play an instrument to save his life.
I’d think that a music teacher would embrace anything that made music more approachable to the masses. Here’s a kid that would never have been engaged in music creation in any way—let alone “practicing” his skills at music creation for hours and hours a day had it not been for technology.
Does that have any value at all?
Nancy also wrote:
There is nothing like playing in a large musical group, one person contributing to a glorious massed chord. You can hear it digitally, day or night (and buy it for 99 cents)–but that does not compare to the satisfaction of being a cog in a human music-making group. I hate to see music reduced to a combination of individual indulgence and a spectator activity.
Bill Responds:
This sounds like an opinion, Nancy—-”There is nothing like” seems pretty exclusive, doesn’t it? Either/Or thinking? A commitment to “the way things were” versus “the way things could be?”
Sometimes I think that our reactions to technology are a result of the pleasure that we take from our own approaches to learning. Is it possible that we see “the best” learning as the way that we learn best—or enjoy the most?
And if so, what consequences does that hold for our ability as a profession to adapt to the changing interests and needs of our learners? Do you think that “pure-ism” for lack of a better word is one of the reasons that teaching practices seldom change?
My mind’s rolling today, that’s for sure….
Bill
Bill– so are you saying that XBox360 Tennis carries the same challenge, effort, discipline, and sensual pleasure that real tennis would require?
Joe and others,
I was re-routed here via Bill’s post about the conversation here and wanted to chime in. While those I work with might see it otherwise, I don’t feel the need to evangelize the wonders of technology in the classroom; the message, in my opinion, that should be spread is much more along the lines of “the right tool for the right job at the right moment.” In our age of instant gratification and information overload, what we design for our students had better be enough to challenge them to the point that the “either/or” situation described in some of the comments above does not come into play. Why can’t we have both the appreciation of the beauty of the bassoon and the construction of music using software and digital instrumentation?
[Bill] Isn’t it possible that the nature of “practicing†music is just changing in a digital age? I’d think that a music teacher would embrace anything that made music more approachable to the masses. Here’s a kid that would never have been engaged in music creation in any way—let alone “practicing†his skills at music creation for hours and hours a day had it not been for technology.
Does that have any value at all?
[Nancy--with apologies to Joe for hijacking your blog, dude] Well–I was speaking about the disciplinary value of learning a skill or craft that comes through repetitive practice, to build facility and automaticity. You have to practice academic things, too, like writing, mathematical algorithms, reading for meaning, in order to become good and fluent at them. Practice improves performance and quality, no matter what the vehicle. I don’t think digital tools have changed the nature of persistence or critical analysis, or the need for repetition, although they may engage new audiences, as you pointed out.
And that’s great. I said so, in my original post, above–and have written extensively about how my students (unlike many band directors’) have lots of open-ended creative assignments, using various technologies. I’m concerned about the loss of once-vital programs where kids make music together, in favor of cheaper computer-based programs where kids imitate pop music individually. Actually, I want them both.
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~Joe Henderson
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