Edu&Tech: Dreaming Wildly
Wednesday, September 5, 2001
Edu&Tech: Dreaming Wildly
Dreaming Wildly: Dave Winer is soliciting the opinions "of people with a positive vision for technology, especially publishing, about the next revolution in technology," in preparation for a Seybold panel in SF in late September.
See, back in my classroom days, Peter is the kind of teacher I would've loved to have been on the same staff with:
What strikes me as important in this whole 'dreaming wildly' thing is that much of the 'bleeding edge' technology is never applied in every day education until it has been 'sterilised' for children's consumption years later by the big educational software publishers. It only becomes educational technology when it is 'safe'. I would love to see children and teachers machete their way through the buffer zone offered by the big publishing houses and get to the sharp end where new technology is developed and have their say about how it might work for them. Children actually have much more vision and insight into these matters than we give them credit for. Dave (Winer) advocates a regular 'Take a developer/programmer to Lunch' day. Let the developers have lunch in our classrooms and see what we cook up together.
Today Peter points to Scobleizer, who makes some good points and has some good ideas regarding the challenges of integrating technology into the classroom in A Tale of Two Classrooms (this liink may be up and down today).
Anyone who has given any thought to edu&tech over the last few years will recognize many of these issues here: how classroom walls create difficult boundaries; platform and software compatibility; problems of classroom and school design and space.
Here are some more, the first couple of which, at least, certainly apply to US schools: inequity in funding not only from one district to the next but from school to school; the increasing pressure of standardized curriculum and testing; the frequent lack of freedom in school schedules; the amazing lack of technical support that people in industry and higher ed take for granted; the amazing amount of social work that schools have taken on in the last twenty five years or so. I could elaborate more on both his and my own points, but that's a much larger essay.
Now, I don't mean to pick on Robert Scoble, because he makes some really good points and presents a fair amount clearly. But, some of his language indicates a view of teachers I frequently hear and read, a kind of strangely distancing language to point at teachers as some kind of "other," as if they really are different from folks working in other fields, as if somehow they aren't really professional. I realize I am very sensitive to this, but these kinds of generalizations just irk me, as if all teachers are the same, and their sameness is a kind of sub-professional, safe, routine, un-intellectual practice.
Certainly there are things teachers have in common in terms of valuing education, their students, and positive learning experiences. But often much of what they have in common are restrictions and limitations imposed on them by a very rigid, dysfunctional, understaffed, underfunded, historically irrelevant educational system. Some of Scoble's phrasing seems to place all of the blame on teachers. Let's look at the originals, and I'll modify them to demonstrate how the blame for the state of our schools, including technology use, goes way beyond the teacher:
"Teachers need to see the value in (technology integration)."
Administrators need to see the value in (technology integration).
Parents need to see the value in (technology integration).
Legislators need to see the value in (technology integration).
Industry needs to see the value in (technology integration).
"Even if teachers see value, they don't know how."
Even if administrators see value, they don't know how.
Even if parents see value, they don't know how.
Even if legislators see value, they don't know how.
Even if industry sees value, they don't know how.
"Teachers are vocal communicators. Er, they use their mouths. I've noticed that teachers can't relate to me at all."
Baseball coaches are vocal communicators. Er, they use their mouths. I've noticed that baseball coaches can't relate to me at all.
Waiters are vocal communicators. Er, they use their mouths. I've noticed that waiters can't relate to me at all.
"Teachers don't want to look stupid."
NOBODY wants to look stupid.
I know and have worked with lots of teachers, from good to excellent to amazing (I'm blocking out the mediocre and few truly bad teachers I've known; take any typical workplace and you'll get the same range from miserable to inspiring), and believe me, and I say this with absolute confidence, that the teachers who work with students everyday are the ones who know how to run a school and what's needed to do it. If teachers had true power we'd see schools run in very different ways with much greater outcomes. Then the mudflinging would change from "Why aren't our teachers teaching and why aren't our children learning," to "How can we as parents, citizens, legislators, higher ed, and industry keep up with and support the amazing things happening in our schools?"
Scoble writes about his son, "In the Yosemite classroom, Patrick learned more in 30 minutes about the various scientific names and general habits of the creatures than I have learned in a lifetime. (Not to mention he's now motivated to learn even more, and is bugging me to buy books about bugs and things)."
Yup. Been there. As a teacher, a student, and as an individual. That's what real learning is like. And unless schools change dramatically, unless all parents and guardians step up to do their part, unless teachers have real support to do that kind of work, then that kind of learning is out of reach of a significant percentage of our population. It's not the teachers holding back. It's my experience that instead teachers are held back.
Postscript: see now, isn't weblogging a great medium? Robert Scoble writes about edu&tech, I write in response (hoping not to sound overly critical), which he reads and then thoughtfully replies back. A quick dialog over distance respectfully conducted with simple tech tools. I like that.
While I'm in defensive mode, Scripting says, "Make the tools available to students, teachers, administrators and families. Teach them how to use the tools (there's something educators should be able to do!) and kick back and just let them use them."
OK, aside from the unnecessary sarcasm in that statment, there's a related idea I've stated many times over the last few years to many different people: here in the US, five or six years ago, the decision to pour gazillions of dollars into schools to wire and put groups of computers in classrooms or to build computer labs was a devastating mistake. As if, suddenly, just given the equipment, teachers and students would know what technology-integrated education is and how to use it. As if, with a little bit of training on applications and search engines teaching would be revolutionized. As if anyone really knew how to do it systemically.
Look at the evidence; it's been a failure. Pick any five classrooms at random in a single district and you'll see the range from unused dust-covered keyboards and unsupported broken machines, to student writing, to on-line research, to collaborative projects. But look beyond schools. Just plopping technology in industry or higher-ed does not suddenly turn everyone into motivated, collaborative, researching workers. (I've also learned that those working in technology and other early adopters just seem to be clueless about why slower adopters shouldn't or won't care more.) It takes time, training, support, raised expectations, and systemic change.
Here's what I think, and it's not too late: instead of dumping tons of equpment into classrooms, put a networked PC with MS Office on every teacher's desk. Personal productivity must come first. I would bet that everyone started out by tinkering and game playing, changing desktop pictures, doing some word processing, then moving onto web browsing, a little emailing, maybe buying something from Amazon, making an appointment with the DMV, etc.
Give every teacher a desktop machine. Move school business to an intranet, from benefits and time sheets to attendance and report cards. Let them gain personal proficiency. Require administrators, principals, and teachers to depend on communicating by email. Within months, once technology is integrated into the personal side of their working lives, a natural next step for teachers will be how to work with others using technology, and how to facilitate groups of students doing the same. I don't think this progression is different for workers in many other professions. But somehow teachers are being held to a different standard.
Given the value of hands-on learning, this is an amazing little news story: Delhi children make play of the net
In the slums of Delhi, an experiment has shown how illiterate street children can quickly teach themselves the rudiments of computers and the internet.
The aim of the experiment, funded by the Indian Government, local institutions and the World Bank was to see what role computers might play in educating India's illiterate millions.
The results were startling, showing how much children with little or no English and no computer training at all could achieve.
Formerly dedicated blogger CY must be either very busy with her UT training and commute or else she is still in the process of becoming a homeowner.
This weblog welcomes back an "expat" American to her motherland and our native shores. You must feel weird being back here.
The bad thing about yinz gan dantan an'at??? being on spiritual retreat is little or no writing. The good thing though is lots a drawings.
It's a small world: Pauline Kael to Lloyd's mentor.
Webcrumbs is doing some serious reading.
I always, always, get back around to reading about art, even if it's only about What Art Dealers Really Want.
Say...
The opinions or statements
expressed herein should not be taken as a position of or endorsement
by the University of California, Berkeley. Nor should the
opinions or statements expressed herein be taken as a position
of or endorsement of the University of California, Berkeley.
Links on these pages to commercial sites do not represent
endorsement by the University of California or its affiliates.
|
