EdTechTrek

The 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)?
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I am reading the book, Blocks to Robots, by Marina Umaschi Bers, and I must say – the first few chapters do a fantastic job at putting technology into perspective as it applies to not only young learners, but adolescent learners as well. In particular, the second chapter presents to perspectives of how children should learn with and about technology: computer literacy and technological fluency.

Computer literacy “relies heavily on developing instrumental skills” whereas technological fluency “focuses on enabling individuals to express themselves creatively with technology.” Both are important and compliment each other. But what I appreciated in addition to this was the following statement that brings much needed balance to many on-going discussions today.

“While developing technological fluency is important for understanding the world of bits and atoms around us, it is just as important to provide children with the vision that technology can also be used to make a better world.”

So often this important dimension of ALL educational practice gets lost in our philosophical discussions and rants about which tool, pedagogy, style, approach, perspective, system, etc… is best. One of the primary goals of a democratic education is to contribute to humanity and make the world a better place for all. With this perspective, we need to think long and hard as to the purpose of our students’ PowerPoint on ________________ (you fill in the blank).

But amongst other great points, Bers  presents six assets or characteristics of thriving individuals taken from the work of applied developmental scientists whereby learners not only learn content, but also “to contribute in positive ways to themselves, their communities, and the world.” These six assets are:

1. competence – in intellectual endeavors and the acquisition of computer literacy and technological fluency
2. confidence – in their own learning potential through technology and their own ability to solve technical problems
3. caring – about others expressed by using technology to engage in collaboration and to help each other when needed
4. connection – with peers or adults to use technologies to form face-to-face or virtual communities and social support networks
5. character – to become aware of their own personal values, be respectful of other people’s values, and assume a responsible use of technology
6. contribution – by conceiving positive ways of using technology to make a better learning environment, community, and society.

This set of assets puts to shame any list of skills and proficiencies that have been generated over the years. It contextualizes isolated skills and gives them meaning. Aren’t we all looking for meaning? Do we really need to evaluate students’ ability to right-click or highlight rows, cells, or columns on a spreadsheet? Are we communicating to teachers and students alike that isolated skills make up learning? ISTE has spent countless hours developing, revising, rewriting, and “refreshing” a list of standards. On the NETS page, there it is: “What you and your students need to know to be tech savvy” and “Today’s Students Need Digital Age Skills”. How about a book that contextualizes skills and gives them meaning… gives them purpose.

Learning should be a gateway to better things… a better world. We forget this far too often. I forget this far too often as I get caught up in the “stuff”. Technology brings so many valuable tools to empower the learner. But meaningful learning contexts are still required.

So, what problems face your students and your community locally that they could tackle? Could they prepare a presentation to present to the school board, the town, the city… It makes me think of this video of a young girl presenting some compelling ideas at the UN titled, “The girl that made the UN silent“…. all done without PowerPoint, too

Maybe it’s just me, but I have seen one too many of these videos now that depict the learning divide (or digital disconnect) that is occurring in this country soley due to the lack of technology’s use in the classroom. But it’s more than that. What is being depicted is a negative view of any learning that does not include technology. I just watched this remix of A Vision of Students Today by Mike Wesch, Did You Know; Shift Happens and Did You Know 2.0 by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod titled, A Vision of K-12 Students Today. In it are unhappy student learners communicating that they simply cannot learn… can not be happy learning, demanding digital learning with the exclusion of any other form of learning. What follows is the script of the video (in italics) and some of my frustration. Please exucse the high degree of sarcasm in places.

Students will use engaging technologies in collaborative, inquiry-based learning environments with teachers who are willing and able to use technology’s power to assist them in transforming knowledge and skills into products, solutions, and new information.

• I am a 21st century learner
• I game 3/5 hours a week
• I will spend 16.5 hours watching TV this week
• 5.5 hours on the computer
• 2 hours reading a book
• I listened to 5 hours of Harry Potter on my ipod this week
• We expect to be able to create, consume, remix, and share information with each other
• My parents us email
• I text, instant message, blog

Well, we know that many kids are not reading books much (Books are what my parents read, not me! What good can come out of reading a book?), still watch a lot of television, and spend more time than ever with the computer and other media-rich devices. It used to be that good teachers expected students to create and share information with each other. Now, suddenly it is the student that is expecting this – but only with technology, of course. There is no way that they could create and share meaningful learning artifacts without technology, right? Here is part of the problem, I think. It is that schools became too passive in their pedagogy, too textbook driven, too teacher centered and too assessment driven. And, in the end, the result is boring classrooms and lessons, seemingly irrelevant learning, and disconnected students.

• 76% of my teachers have never used wikis, blogs, podcasts
• At least once a week 14% of my teachers let me create something new with technology. 63 % never do.
• 61% of my reading teachers never use digital storytelling software
• If we learn by doing, what are we learning sitting here?
• How do you learn?

According to this video, it really doesn’t matter how I learn. But this I do know. The concept of learning by doing is nothing new! The true crime here is that teachers and educational systems are making it hard to allow students to learn through the creation of relevant and meaningful artifacts. To imply that students today are incapable of learning anything while sitting and listening to someone else is just irresponsible. Perhaps 61% of reading teachers never use digital storytelling software, but does this mean that these same 61% are terrible reading teachers? What is the percentage of reading teachers who do very little at all with storytelling? I would guess it is also up there.

• What kind of education would you want me to have if I were your son, your daughter,
• By the year 2016, the largest English speaking country will be China.
• There are more honor students in China than there are people in North America
• But only 1/2 of us will graduate from high school. Will I?
• I will have 14 jobs before I am 38 years old.
• Most of those jobs do not exist today
• How will this (referring sullenly to a notebook with writing in it) help me?
• How could this help me? (holding and iPod or laptop in hand)

Yes, the state of US education is in trouble. But to imply that a book and pencil has no use in the learning process flies directly in the face of countries like China and India who are still learning with books, pencils, pens, and excellent listening and thinking skills, and disciplined minds. Of course, they also use newer technologies, as so should we all. But the tone here is such that unless we are using these newer technologies all the time, we are failing as teachers, that unless we are blogging or using wikis and creating digital stories, we are hopelessly defunct.

• Teach me to think, to create, to analyze, to evaluate, to apply. Teach me to think.
• Let me use the WWW… Whatever, Whenever, Wherever
• Let me tell a story… digitally
• Engage me! (repeated by 15 different bored students)
• We are digital learners.

Once again, engaging students and teaching them to think, to create, to analyze, to evaluate, to applly… is nothing new! But to imply that the solution alone here is to let students use technology and the internet whenever, whereve, for whatever,… is just plain nutty. The bigger failure here is that we, as educators, have often failed at helping students think, analyze, evaluate, apply, and create meaningful and relevant learning artifacts. Of couse, technology today can play a powerful role. Of course we need to embrace new cultural tools and new forms of learning. But the mere act of doing so does not guarantee improved thinking, analytic, and evaluatory skills. Excellent teachers are still required. This video discounts the power of an excellent teacher, with or without the use of newer technologies. It attributes all learning power to new technologies. Just let kids have at it with all the tools that they love to use, and learning will result (and in some cases, it certainly can).

This video implies quite strongly that learners today (“digital natives”) are ONLY digital learners and that learning any other way (meaning without new technology) is simply a waste of time… it doesn’t work any more. To embrace such a view that throws away books, pencils and othe more traditional learning technologies, and discounts the ability to listen and process relevant information, that writing in an analog world is not writing and has no value, that the only form of social learning is the digital form, that public speaking is a dying artform,… is a huge mistake. To buy into this idea that this digital generation cannot learn unless digitally connected is wrong. The learning community in general would be much better served by videos that depict best practices and strong rationales for any technologies rather than gloom-and-doom, woe is me, China is going to take over the world types of messages. For, I think, these types of messages as in this particular video serve only to “preach to the choir” and get played mostly by the very communities that aspouse the inherent values and ideas presented in the video. Yes, this generation thinks, socializes, and learns in new ways. Yes, we need to harness these new forms of learning in a very digital world. Learning networks. Social learning. Creation tools. Creative tools. Tools to facilitate collaboration beyond physical space…. There are so many fantastic learning tools and opportunities out here like never before. We should be using them in the classroom. But, at no point should we be communicating to both kids and the educational community at large that unless we are using ALL of these tools ALL the time, we are somehow flawed…. educational fuddy duddies. And, there is no reason why kids cannot and should not learn by listening to a developmentally appropriate “lecture”, from reading a book or textbook, by writing with a pen or pencil… on paper, by participating in a community project or apprenticeship,… The heart of the issue really is engaging students in meaningful learning, both with and without technology. Be a great teacher! And yes,  to be relevant and meaningful today, technology must be used to a new level. Teachers must stay fresh and current in all that they do – not only with technology.

Just please stop making and promoting these kinds of videos that portray a distorted and flawed view of learning.

Here’s today’s headline:

Teen Dating ‘08: Nude Pix On Cell Phones

The CBS news article describes unabashed teens sending sexually explicit photos and videos of themselves to others. A psychology professor at San Diego State University who studies young people’s trends, is quoted as saying:

“Adolescents are not known for thinking things through – that’s a generational constant,” she said. “Now, with the technology that is out there, instead of taking a picture and passing it around the classroom, it’s online, which is a whole different ball game. (Teens) don’t see it that way.”

It reminds of the video series on YouTube, Think Before You Post. There is absolutely no control over the content once it is sent, as the article briefly touches on.

Where are the parents in all of this? Where is the village that is required to raise a child? It would seem like there are a large number of children raising themselves in these digital times. Kids, more than ever, need involved and caring parents, teachers, and significant others in their lives like never before. Peter Benson, from the Search Institute, has a short article with some great information titled, “What Happened to My Little Angel”. See also the document, Building Assets for Youth. Kids need us more than ever! Here are a few of the Search Institute’s findings when it comes to adult responsibilities for growing healthy children:

• helping young people feel loved, supported, and accepted;
• giving young people appropriate boundaries and structures;
• providing constructive, healthy activities for young people;
• helping young people stay committed to education and learning;
• nurturing positive, caring values in young people;
• building basic life skills and positive views of themselves and the future.

These are things that happen week after week and year after year in families, congregations, schools, and communities. These are the things that make a difference! It makes a real difference when . . .

• parents make it a top priority to spend time and talk with their teenagers;
• adults in a congregation or from the community volunteer to be mentors for youth;
• youth ministry programs provide positive activities that involve youth;
• young people learn how much they have to contribute to their community and world through volunteering to serve others;
• teenagers get involved in positively influencing public policy;
• schools learn about assets they can offer youth and seek to strengthen those assets for all students.

We can’t abandon kids. We must engage them in positive and healthy ways, in the classroom, at home, and in the community – this includes the digital community (see Freerice.com or GlobalNomads). We must empower them and equip them for success in a highly connected, complicated digital age.

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?