EdTechTrek

The recent media frenzy (see eschoolnews article here) over the 16 year old Florida girl who was savagely beaten by eight other teens for the expressed purpose of posting their conquest on YouTube and MySpace brings up so many issues to think about. We have Internet safety, bullying, violence, media influence, morality,… But the question that keeps coming to mind for me is that of parenting and family. Parents have about 12 or so years to really influence their children before peer pressure begins to complicate things. Here we have teen children premeditating a terrible assault to be captured on video to share with the word. This is not typical teen deviation. Where are the parents? What have they been doing for the past 16 years? It is increasingly obvious that parents today need a new level of awareness and involvement in the lives of their kids - their digital lives. But putting all that aside for a moment, this behavior is foundationally about parenting. I must confess, I know nothing about the parents of the eight accused. However, their actions lead me to believe that something is severely lacking there.

It is so easy to blame the YouTube generation and YouTube itself. Blame the Internet. Blame pack mentality. Or, blame the school for not being aware of the underlying tensions that may have precipitated this attack. Even the victim’s mother is allocating some blame to the YouTube generation for being desensitized and warped by the media culture it has helped shape. However, true that this may be, kind, caring, service- and social justice-oriented, compassionate, responsible, intelligent, proactive, ethical, productively engaged people do not do this sort of thing. These are the attributes that any good parent would seek to cultivate in their child. Parents need to wake up. Parenting 2.0 is still a great deal about parenting 1.0. Kids do not teach themselves these positive behaviors. The “Golden Rule” is still something to be highly valued, taught, and modeled, no?

I just got back from my son’s first baseball practice of the season. The kids were quite excited and jittery. But, here’s the kicker. When the coach called them all over, they came. When he spoke, for the most part they listened attentively. When he have the rule about sportsmanship (any insults or unsportsmanlike conduct, you’re out of the game or practice), everyone understood. Then, we broke up into groups for small group work - infielding, batting, pitching, outfielding, catching. Coaches modeled, guided practice, and left time for independent practice, with small cycles of reteaching and modeling continually interspersed where needed. The kids were engaged, challenged, and having a good time learning and playing the game. We finished with a short game to put all of the skills to practice. That is when I was reminded of a poster that I used to have up on my office door. It was by Alison Gopnik. It reads,

“…But routinized learning is not an end in itself. A good coach may well make his players throw the ball to first base 50 times or swing again and again in the batting cage. That will help, but by itself it won’t make a strong player. The game itself — reacting to different pitches, strategizing about base running — requires thought, flexibility and inventiveness.

Children would never tolerate baseball if all they did was practice. No coach would evaluate a child, and no society would evaluate a coach, based on performance in the batting cage. What makes for learning is the right balance of both learning processes, allowing children to retain their native brilliance as they grow up…”

So, what does this all mean? Well, for one thing, unless we make learning relevant and give it practical application, students will never experience the true love of learning - love of the game. For, without practical and authentic application, all that remains is information and decontextualized skill acquisition. Students need to experience the thrill of the game and its inherent skillset, strategies, problem-solving, creativity, inventiveness, flexibility, teamwork…

So, ask yourself anew - are your students experiencing authentic information and skill acquisition situated in larger context of “the game”? Are they getting a chance to play the game, or is it just practice, practice, practice? Are we preparing our students to be successful at “school”, or are we preparing them to be successful at [the game of] life? And, ask yourself if the “game” has changed over the years since you were in school. Are there new technologies to prepare for and play the game? Are there new ways to facilitate the playing of the game? Are there virtual ways to experience the game and take part in it like never before? If there are, then it stands to reason that the game can be kept fresh and real if we embrace these new and powerful tools for becoming better players of the game. But, yes, if the game is not important, then we can just be happy with learning about the game and practicing the skills that were needed for the game a few decades ago.

Oh yes - there has to be assessment, right? The test….  In baseball, the true test is what one does on the field… in the game. Imagine if baseball players, or any athlete for that matter, where assessed primarily by their performance on a written test on the rules and strategies of the game. Would  such performance ensure excellent players and a winning team?

I never thought that tonight’s practice would bring up so many things to think about. Play Ball!

What did your child do at school today?

In a recent news report from the UK, an informal poll uncovered that students at UK laptop schools are spending class/lesson time on social network sites.

“Global Secure Systems (GSS) – “an IT security consultancy, has uncovered the alarming reality that UK school children are studying social networking websites during their lessons instead of what they should be concentrating on. In its survey, conducted through Facebook, to discover just how widespread the issue of children visiting sites of this nature at inappropriate times is, a staggering 52 per cent of the 1000 children aged between 13 and 17 who participated, confessed that they did so during lessons. Over a quarter admitted they were doing so for in excess of 30 minutes a day!”

And then, another issue is raised in this article:

“Kids are potentially wasting as much as two and a half hours a week of lessons on Facebook. I recognise that there is a place for social networking, with a whole new generation now relying on it to communicate, but not at the expense of an education. Schools could learn a lesson from industry and ensure school children productively use the internet. Through the deployment of software, access to inappropriate websites can either be completely blocked, or limited to break time, economically and efficiently.”

And then finally…

“In a separate GSS poll, conducted with Infosecurity Europe 2008, it discovered that the recent popularity of social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, is costing UK corporations close to £6.5 billion annually in lost productivity. GSS itself as a company recently clamped down on social networking during working hours. When faced with the need for additional bandwidth, David Hobson their MD, analysed why and discovered that by simply restricting the times that sites of this nature could be accessed to lunchtimes and after close of business there was no longer the need to increase bandwidth and so saved thousands of pounds.”

So, here’s what I have been thinking about lately in relation to this. It is no doubt that filtering at school is problematic. Sites teachers and students need are often blocked. There is a great deal of red tape in order to get needed sites unblocked. Some sites never get unblocked because the powers on high decide that they are not worthy of being unblocked. Blocking of needed sites and reasonable keyword searches severely interferes with learning on a day to day basis. It interferes with teachers trying to use current and valuable resources in their classrooms. If forces unreasonable planning in order to get needed sites unblocked before they are to be used in the classroom. It undermines just-in-time use of Internet resources. And, it communicates to teachers that they are not professional enough to manage filter settings on their own. I am sure that there are other issues at play here.

But, the business world has had to check employee personal use of network usage due to loss in productivity. A great deal of on-the-clock time has been wasted on personal Internet usage and communication (browsing, email, video, booking trips, making personal purchases….). I have no doubt that employers have every right to make sure that their employees are spending their paid time working for the employer and not conducting personal business. And, as David Hobson suggests, it would be fine for employers to pause such restriction during lunch times and after hours. Yet Clarence Fisher over on Remote Access has a recent post about Google successfully allowing its employees 10-20% of their job time to persue their own interests and what if we did this similar thing in education. However, this is different from “class time” where students do have specific tasks to be attending to. It is interesting to consider, nonetheless.

So, is it then acceptable to do the same in education? It it acceptable for students to shun instructional and learning time in lieu of personal network communication and browsing… regardless of the reason?? Would parents support such decisions? Would it be acceptable for an employee to rationalize such wasted productivity time with the reason that they were not particularly engaged in their work and were not really enjoying the tasks that were set before them to accomplish?

Now, I am not in any way excusing poor instruction or lack of relevant learning opportunities in classrooms. I am not excusing the lack of vision and creativity that often occurs. However, I do feel that students are losing their ability to attend to verbal information and to complete tasks that perhaps are not of their preference. Of course, this is nothing new. There have always been students who doodle, pass notes, daydream, and have bad attitudes when they are not particularly engaged in the learning tasks set for them. And, teachers are obligated to read such behavior and body language and adapt their instruction so that they are meeting the needs of their students. But, the “discipline of learning” (see Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death) seems to be undermined as students have unfettered access to Internet resources during instructional time. There have been countless reports by educators at all levels on this topic (laptops in the classroom/lecture hall), so I am not going to summarize all of those here. Due to this issue, guidelines are being established my many institutions.

My question is this, though. What is the balance point between effective teaching along with expectations for student learning and excusing students’ lack of ability to learn, be interested and attend (drifting off into cyberspace instead) - on learning that does not meet their “style” or interest level? At what point do we expect students to learn content and learn it in ways that those with experience know (teachers) are still very valuable, but perhaps not so sexy or appealing… and just plain hard work? I am not talking about differentiation, learning styles or multiple intelligences here. I think sometimes we are communicating that if we are not using podcasts, blogs, wikis, laptops, and the like… that we somehow cannot be effective teachers - that students will choose to ignore us if we don’t use the tools that they like. Again, I am not arguing against the use of these tools and their related practices… I support them wholeheartedly. But when students cannot sit and listen to an intelligent, developmentally appropriate and compelling (and I stress all three of these attributes) “lecture” and take an active part in related discussion (or even pose relevant questions) for more than a few minutes without losing interest or comprehension, then perhaps the tools and media that “speak to them” so much are actually diminishing their capacity to think and learn at more abstract levels. Are these students truly multitaskers who can have 2 or more tasks going on simultaneously (listening and answering email for example) while achieving a level of excellence on all of them? Or, is quality somehow compromised as a result of the multitasking (like the inability to seriously consider what is being discusses and participate in discussion and question generation)? Personally, some of the “backchanneling” that I have been a part of has either been a distraction to fully listening to the presenter or a distraction due to the tangential and even off-topic chatter going on. Of course, there has also been some great backchanneling as well. Would we accept off-task backchanneling in our classrooms? We don’t in the physical sense. So, should we in the virtual sense? Is student lack of interest and inability to attend ALWAYS the product of poor teaching? Sorry for the rhetorical question here.

Anyway, at the risk of being called an technological heretic, these are all of the issues that this article brought to mind for me. Sorry for the rambling nature of the post. I am certainly not arguing against technological and educational innovation, creativity, and socially-mediated meaning-making. I just don’t think that the issues around education, filtering, new tools, network access, and cultural shifts are all that simple. We are quick to blame teachers who are not adapting quickly enough. But could it be that this type of shift is much messier, harder to make and more complex than others? Please set me straight if I am way off here.

Wow… Just read this article in Teachers College Record titled, The Cost of Accommodating Classroom Technology by Michael Bugeja and was blown away - both by his pessimistic view of technology, some great insights and then by his final recommendations which are a little more optimistic and common-sense. Here is the gist of it (really pared down… read it for yourself to get the whole context).

1. Pedagogy has had to change to accommodate technology. This is a bad thing. It should be the other way around. This can be both a good or a bad thing. Certain technologies have a way of amplifying need for more effective pedagogies that education has long been advocating, such as problem-based learning, collaboration, problem-solving, analytical thinking, social learning, high engagement, authentic and situated learning…, use of primary resources, creativity, differentiated learning… And, I would agree that in many cases, pedagogy has changed with the infusion of technology. But, I would disagree that it has HAD to change to accommodate technology. Ineffective teachers continue to be ineffective with new technologies. Effective teachers continue to refine their craft and become even more effective with powerful uses of technology. Yes, there is probably a honeymoon period where any teacher needs to learn new tools on rather low-level tasks to avoid cognitive overload, but they quickly understand the need to scale up their use and their use with their students.

2. Educators are “altering” long-tested learning theories/methodologies to invest in new media touted by for-profit corporations. All I can say here is “Hooey!” If anything, teachers are putting aside less effective, more teacher-centered strategies and replacing them where appropriate with more student-centered, meaningful learning strategies. And, as with technologies like PowerPoint, teachers at all levels have been duped into more teacher-centered practices due to this slick presentation tool that makes stand-and-deliver teaching all that much easier with less knowledge and preparation. But I think (hope) that is changing. I would agree that there appears to be an emphasis in the educational technology community for more constructivist/constructionist teaching methodologies and this needs to be balanced out better with effective implementations of technologies to support the more direct instruction pedagogies. They do play an important role in the classroom with the right students for the right learning goals.

3. Educational institutions at all levels invest in equipping with trendy gadgets programmed for revenue generation rather than for learning. Well, I know this goes on, especially in higher education, but K-12 education is certainly not exempt. It makes me think of the Channel One television programming initiative in schools where students HAD to watch the daily broadcasts, rife with advertising, so that schools could outfit their classrooms with this revolutionary technology - the television. And, one can certainly claim that vendors of all types are foundationally more interested in revenue than student learning. But this does not mean that visionary educators cannot usurp any of those interests for the betterment of their students, teaching and learning. And, there are many commercial-free options.

4. Administrators compromise common-sense thinking in order to fulfill grant guidelines and get the cool gadgets. It happens. Often the cart is put before the horse. Technologies before infrastructure. Tools and opportunities sans support. Technologies before teacher buy-in, teacher training, and downright poor choices of technology to to misinformation or lack of information/knowledge.

5. Any system or body that challenges the technological imperative is doomed… such talk is considered heresy. This statement resonates with me to some degree. Sometimes I feel that educational technologists and technology proponents are too quick to see the “benefits” without thinking about the “tradeoffs” at a deeper than surface level. Get the stuff now and find a problem that it can solve to justify the expenditure. Too often, I think folks like Neil Postman, Larry Cuban, Richard E. Clark, Todd Oppenheimer,… are spoken of as “luddites” without really taking to heart what they have to say.

6. The Internet has destroyed the process of peer review and the scientific method. Just because anyone and everyone has the ability to “publish” on the Internet does not mean these two valuable processes have been destroyed! The issue has raised the importance of new types of literacies in a digitally connected world - data smog, information glut, info-glut, info-garbage… whatever you want to call them. If anything, these processes become even more important as we all struggle with evaluating validity and accuracy of on-line sources of information. Especially students need to be equipped for effecively navigating the digital world of information. I think that too often we have been guilty of not being critical of traditional print resources - especially the highly-based slant present in many textbooks used in K-12 education.

7. Traditional repositories of information (libraries) are being undermined by on-line databases and information archives. We don’t read scrolls anymore (except for those who study ancient writings, and I am sure they appreciate being able to view those original sources on their computer screens). I am sure someone felt threatened by the shifts over the centuries with information technologies (printing press, pencil/pen, newspapers, telegraph,…) What I do understand is that sometimes internet-based information’s shelf-life on line can be rather short… here today and gone tomorrow. However, I think most authoritative and peer-reviewed sources of information that lie in on-line databases and the like will continue to change forms. They will always be findable in whatever form the exist.

8. Social networks serve to sell and surveil its mindless victims. Again, I don’t think that we have been critical enough of some of the social networks out there… free services with many hidden agendas and advertising imperatives. Commercialism and consumerism are being infused into social networks targeted at younger and younger children (Webkinz, Club Penguin, NickTropolis, NeoPets, Disney XD, imbee,…). Are we largely ignoring the tradeoffs with our exuberance for social networking? However, there are many new tools out there to customize social networking in educational settings with the option of being free of advertising and consumerism undertones (Ning, Elgg…). And, it is a reality that our students are using these social technologies. We should not be ignoring them. They need help learning how to swim in these new waters.

9. We are losing fundamental freedoms “due to an ill-informed populace distracted by rampant consumerism.” Just read Neil Postman and others. They make some very valid points. Are you reading this stuff or just ignoring it? I think it is critical to read the work of others who might be in direct or somewhat direct opposition to what you believe, as they can be very instrumental in bringing balance to the conversation as well as enlighten you on some things that perhaps you have not considered.

10. Technology has caused a loss of free time for family and friends in a 24/7 work-day. There are some folks out there with technology addictions. There are folks who can’t ever get away from the office due to the office being in their pocket now. But there are also folks who are able to free up time spent commuting, traveling, and are able to create flexible schedules and work from home, in the end, spending more time with children and family. There are many technologies that save time. It is even more important today with all of the distractions and data smog that we become more highly skilled at managing information. RSS technologies, as one example, have brought so many advantages to this discussion. There are also many technologies that are bringing people together across great distances, whether they be family, friends, colleagues, experts or others. Distance education has been a lifeline for many who simply cannot take advantage of the great institutions and teachers out there due to their geographic location.

11. Technology addiction kills (cellphone drivers & iPod pedestrians). It sure can. But, we can’t single out “technology addiction” in this argument. There are many addictions out there that can kill and do kill with so much greater frequency. Welcome to an imperfect world. All the more reason to educate our youth and adults alike on leading healthy and balanced lives.

12. Education believes we need technological devices no matter what the cost. You will run across some who seem to believe this. However, I think that there are a great number of administrators who really make the effort to be informed and make wise decisions regarding instructinoal technologies. I think absolutist statements like this are unnecessarily derrogatory and don’t help in this discussion. But, I think there is a huge danger when we have I.T. personnel making such decisions that directly impact teaching, curriulum and data flow without the input of the folks they are supposed to be serving and supporting. I have run into so many [bad] situations where these folks know they hold the power over you and weild it proudly!

Here is the advice presented in this argument. It’s pretty good for the most part, I think.

• For starters, they should stop celebrating technology and start seeing it as an autonomous system so as to introduce it responsibly into the classroom.
• Digital technologies can be used judiciously to supplement and enhance [what about transform??] many but not all educational endeavors. That is why assessment before investment is more important now than ever.Educators must ask fundamental questions before adopting devices, applications and platforms that may erode rather than promote critical thinking, such as:

1. How will this device or application enhance or detract from my learning objectives?
2. How will [or should!] my pedagogy change, if at all, if I adapt the technology into my lesson plans?
3. What is the motive programmed into the interface, template or application, and how can I adjust for that in the classroom, online or in-world?
4. What are the risks—privacy invasion, online harassment, restrictive service terms, etc.—that might trigger controversy or code violations?
5. What type of learning curve is required to use the device, application or platform and what am I willing to sacrifice during class or office hours to make up that loss of time?
6. What will the new technology drain from the existing IT system in terms of bandwidth and/or upgrades and support to existing computers, devices and services?
7. What new costs will students incur in addition to any texts if I require use of any device, application or platform?
8. What will the cost be in workload to my colleagues if a new course is created to accommodate the device, application or platform?
9. Has the new course been assessed in terms of effectiveness and student demand in an existing module such as a seminar, workshop or independent study in the course catalog?
10. When, where and for what purpose is use of the technology (especially mobile devices) appropriate or inappropriate?

“If we practice these tenets, we will model the behavior we wish to see in students so that they develop new awareness of technology and its power, cost and limitations. With such awareness, they will be able to accommodate technology effectively into their lives.If we fail to practice these tenets, students will accommodate technology to such extent that it will use them, complicating their lives with government surveillance, impulse buying and constant distraction.”

So, where does that leave us? I think cautious optimism is not a bad thing. The tone of this article is that we are all doomed! We are all being duped! I don’t think so. When I look around and see what so many amazing teachers are doing with information technologies and other technologies, it is truly inspirational. We need to celebrate these examples more. Are there some less-than-stellar implementation of technology? Sure. Are there some serious issues to consider and wrestle with? Yes. More than ever we need a highly-skilled and informed citizenry. Our preservice teachers are not being prepared for this new world to the degree necessary. Our inservice teachers are struggling. Many are refusing. Many are faced with so many obstacles. And many are excelling.Let’s continue to celebrate and communicate excellent examples of technology to support learning. I applaud the educational technology community in doing this so well already. Ustream.tv, blogs, wikis, Elluminate, TalkShoe, Skype, podcasting, - these are technologies that have been celebrating, teaching, empowering, connecting, and building a highly professional network of like-minded educators like never before. These tools are simply the vehicles by which all of this is happening. Opportunity to learn has increased exponentially.

The bigger question we should ask folks who are dragging their feet is, “Why don’t you want to learn?”

Stumbled across an article in the NY Times titled, “If You Can’t Let Go, Twitter“. It it, the writer describes her attempt to connect with her 3 daughters (digital natives, right) via Twitter. Let’s just say, it didn’t work. After trying a number of tactics, including giving away money, she consults with a Walter J. Carl, an assistant professor of communications studies at Northeastern University, who said he wasn’t surprised. He is quoted as explaining the problem in the following way:

“You want to use these tools to keep up on others, in a good way, of course, and to let them keep up on you,” said Professor Carl, whose research focuses on social media. “But their perception is it’s surveillance.” One of the main reasons people embrace social media — Facebook, for instance — is to create identities for themselves and control other people’s perceptions of them.”

And then…

“Maybe Twitter isn’t the right tool for that job,” he said. “The people who I see using it are an older demographic, people in marketing or P.R. or advertising, who use it for work, to present themselves as particular types of people. They’ll twitter, ‘I’m traveling,’ or ‘I’m going to interesting restaurants.’ They’re using it to do identity work.”

Isn’t it interesting how this new communication tool that so many adults are using is not considered all that useful with kids… that they are more concerned with “creating identities for themselves and control other people’s perceptions of them”, as happens on Facebook and MySpace. But here’s my question: kids to love to IM and text. They thrive on social networking. One would think, in combination with social networking services, that a tool like Twitter would be “phat“. Huh!

In this new age of information glut/data smog, the importance of being information literate has grown exponentially. How do we reconcile this generation’s desire to “control other people’s perception of them”? Seem’s natural, for sure. But is the digital realm blurring the line between fact and fiction in a way that we must better address in education? Are students more accepting of blurred realities? And, if so, how does this impact one’s ability to value the truth and seek it out?