Good Technology:Bad People
Fear, Tools, safety, society July 25th, 2008The headline “Are Google Maps good or evil?” caught my eye in eschoolnews today. The short piece describes how a tool like Google Maps can be used for both good and evil purposes. The evil is that child predators can use maps, and especially street view with 360 degree panoramas to scope out potential sites, learn routes and hidden nooks and crannies where they can potentially victimize children. The good is that the same tool provides locations and related data of all documented child predators. You can search by state, zip, and even particular address.
The group, StopInternetPredators.org even has a video explaining the potential misuse of this powerful tool when in the hands of predators.
This is a perfect example of a neutral tool that can be used in both positive and negative ways; in positive and powerful ways or in evil and destructive ways. The power of the tool is in the hands of the tool user. We know this to be true in the classroom as well. We have to be so careful in presenting new tools to teachers and make sure that we make the pedagogical case for the tool’s use, not just the trendy or cool uses of the tools. If we don’t give exemplars of powerful learning and ways to manage such messy learning opportunities, then we are simply the educational technology “drug pushers”, getting folks hooked on the “geek factor” rather than the “learning factor”. The former is much easier than the latter, isn’t it (from a true geek at heart)?
July 25th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Steve, you raise critical points here.
I think that any tool that is introduced to teachers needs to have pedagogical value. This post could easily be named - good teaching tools, bad teachers. We can teach Catcher in the Rye in both good and bad ways also.
As teachers, it is imperative that we know what we are teaching and why we are teaching it in the way we do.
July 26th, 2008 at 9:43 am
@Tracy - yes, this post evolved as I was writing it… which is why I love to blog - it helps me think. It could be titled many things… and really could be two distinct posts. But, as mentioned, writing has always helped me think - especially divergently. Your comment is so true that as teachers we must have a very strong rationale for making the instructional decisions that we do. Too often we use the argument that the kids are simply more engaged. To me, that is the least of it!! Engagement should be a byproduct of meaningful, effective learning - not the other way around. I always tell this to my preservice teachers and it is a hard one for them to get their head around. They really need lots of good examples of seeing this in action… something that they don’t get much of - especially during student teaching. We wonder why our teachers struggle so much with this… well, often our preservice teachers come out of teachers’ colleges with nothing more than book knowledge and student teaching/internship experiences that were less than stellar.
Well, as I said, I think divergently when writing. See what you made me do?