Today, I’ll be working with educators in an independent school in Minnesota. There will be an opening keynote address for the faculty, but then I spend the rest of the day with technology, media, art, and science folks, helping them struggle with some issues of modernizing instruction, making it more relevant to today’s information landscape.
Why is it that we can’t get past the technology barrier. It seems that no matter how hard I try, to make it about the future, the kids, and the information, people still compliment me on a wonderful technology presentation. If you use a computer and projector, then it’s about technology. If you put your handouts on the web, it must be about technology. If you’ve made a web site, then you must be talking about technology. [Image ((Svenwerk, “Nature and Technology.” Svenwerk’s Photostream. 3 Mar 2006. 22 Aug 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/svenwerk/107267802/>.))]
Here’s a quote about my speech to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools the other day, as reported in the local paper.
The keynote speaker was David Warlick, a 30-year educator who operates The Landmark Project out of Raleigh. Warlick shared many ideas on using technology and the Internet in the classroom to make learning more exciting for students and teachers.
Most of the article was about district initiatives that were presented by the superintendent, which is as it should be. But I’m not talking about technology, like its something that you have to open your drawer and chose to use. Technology is the drawer! ..and it’s the paper and pencil! ..and it’s the voice and the conversation.
I’m pretty sure that it was Alan Kay who said that, “Technology is anything that was invented after you were born.” Does it have to stay that way? At what point does it stop being the technology and become the medium — and become transparent?
This is a barrier for us, this sense that we’re striving to modernize classrooms by using more technology. I still do not think that the kids do this. When they go out and buy the latest game system, they are not buying the latest technology. They’re buying better games. They are buying better experiences.
Folks out there who are making valuable and sustainable uses of technology, do you still think of it as integrating technology? If not, when did that stop? When did it become sustainable?
I guess for me, it happened when I started thinking about my job as entirely about inventing and communicating, rather than helping people integrate technology.
“Stop Ranting!”
David, I really appreciate your rant! I am in the education area of a nonprofit, and all I hear about all day is how is our “technology” project going, no matter how many times I talk about learner outcomes and increasing effectiveness and relevancy. Your feelings are definitely shared!
Yesterday, twice at my school, I was called to classrooms being set-up by teachers to push the computer power button (they knew where it was and they had already plugged everything in) because they wanted me to be there when the computer started up in case something went wrong. That’s why in their minds it’s about the technology.
Yow! That’s outrageous…
I hate to say this, but that’s an insult to the profession.
Keep ranting.
I have been saying this for so long and it feels like no one hears! The technology is the pencil and paper, the crayon and scissors, just the tool. It is not about the technology, it is about the learning.
FYI: It was Don Tapscott in Growing Up Digital who said “technology is not technology unless it was invented after you were born.”
In think that as long as kids have computer “classes” and computer “class” teachers there will be no true integration. Don’t get rid of the tech people, have them work in the classrooms. Just a thought.
This might be a repeat–if so delete, I couldn’t tell if it was posted. N.
Never mind, Tapscott was quoting Alan Key.
The teachers that I work with have trouble seeing the value of technology. Some are afraid. Some don’t feel that they can give the time to learn anything new (which is a whole different problem). It’s like a fine sculpture…keep chipping away…and eventually it starts to look like it is supposed to.
PEace,
Scott Hudson
Ever since I read your post, I’ve been chewing it over. Even talked to my wife about it.
• I think some are scared. I mean, they have a great life now so why take on the discomfort of learning this new stuff. Maybe they feel like their not up to it—after all, it is complex. It may appear to them like the task of learning a new language as an adult and they simply don’t want to do it.
• Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t a matter of learning style. Perhaps some are as interested or skilled in mastering “technology” as I am in painting a picture or making a table of wood. They are simply unconvinced and disinclined to pursue “technology”.
• Staff development “drive-bys” are the rule, the norm, for our profession. You simply can’t learn to use and apply technology or anything else in that environment. And typically we’re a solitary profession, alone, so their isn’t much support from peers for changing our pedagogy or our focus. Further, I don’t think educational leaders (and there are exceptions to everything I’m saying) have a clue about the world’s change or technology’s import in learning.
• Tom Friedman and others talk about the “hunger factor”, i.e. Indian, Korean, Chinese students (and other nations as well) are hungry for a robust education. Additionally, their family probably supports and encourages their educational quest. To the contrary, I think Americans are, by and large, fat and happy and comfortable physically and intellectually. So I don’t really see educators, other adults, parents, older siblings, legislators, policy makers or business people curious or attempting to solve the educational conundrum seriously and intelligently.
At this point, I guess it doesn’t hurt enough.
Thanks for the rant. I really enjoy reading your thoughts.
Skip Olsen
This is a good rant.
Technology is just the tool a teacher uses to help students learn. I have always thought that you start with what you want the students to learn, then look at the best (most accessible, engaging, interesting) ways to help the process. We are lucky to have so many different ways that we can approach learning and teaching. Where I work the teachers who have tried using some of the technology tools have found their students totally engaged in their work and exited by what they are doing. “It’s not like learning at all!” is a quote from one boy.