More technology, less support: teaching and learning are not benefitting from the great techno-push

photo by Katie Lips

Educational technology has not improved teaching or learning in general because teachers are not able to explore, experience, and be trained in relevant uses. A great amount of teachers want to help students become technologically literate, but finding the time to work with new technology and incorporate it into meaningful lessons is a huge challenge - and it’s not getting any easier. As Oppenheimer (2003) has noted, “…teacher training takes serious doses of time, money and effort” (p. 306). He has also suggested that “as far as technology is concerned…the panopoly of demands on America’s teaching force is substantial, and rising.” (p.311). I think we can apply that last quote to Canada’s educators as well. In my division, teachers coach and head other school clubs, plan educational trips, work on numerous school committees, incessantly work on keeping up-to-date on resources and teaching methods, and in the last few years have continuously been working on changing assessment practices.

Other educators such as Larry Cuban (2001)have echoed these issues, citing a “lack of time available for teachers to find relevant software, judge its worth, and try out the products in classrooms” and saying that “training in relevant software and applications was seldom offered at the times that they needed them” (p. 97)

Kalkowski has attempted to figure out why teachers have not been able to integrate technology to the desired levels. One of the important findings was that teacher training needs to be more extensive and start earlier – in fact, when teachers are learning their profession.

“It has been shown that teachers teach how they were taught. (Norton & Gonzales, 1998). So, for beginning teachers, the teacher education faculty members must model effective use of technologies in their own classrooms (Cooper & Bull, 1997). Ropp (1999) conducted a longitudinal study during a preservice teacher education course that included hands-on technology training and classroom discussion of technology and found that students made significant improvements in technology proficiency, computer self-efficacy and computer coping strategies from the beginning to the end of the course. When Topp (1996) studied recent teacher graduates, he found that a computer-specific course was essential, especially one on computer integration, but that the technology education pre-service teachers felt they received was inadequate.”


Think about how you were taught to use technology in when you were attaining your education degree. Do you believe it was substantive and focused on integration in the classroom, or was it superficial and ineffective? My Teacher and Technology course involved creating a website, a PowerPoint presentation, and learning about computers themselves. In one of my courses students had the opportunity to create a short film. In essence, teacher candidates received a brief introduction to educational technology. Is that good enough?

One force in education that may have been able to assist teachers in technology integration is teacher-librarians. Unfortunately, education budgets across many parts of North America have not allowed for extensive teacher-librarian or library budgets. Froese-Germain (2001) suggests that the whole system is backward: “Paradoxically, while schools go about acquiring more information and communications technology, teacher librarian positions are being eliminated as a result of funding cutbacks” (p.3).

But is Froese-Germain’s position supported by evidence? Here’s a few more voices on the issue:

“The government, teachers, and the public agree that literacy is essential. Research
evidence supports the value of libraries to improving literacy. However, the drastic
cuts in resources are hitting school libraries particularly hard. Teacher-librarian time
is reduced or eliminated in many schools making library services less available to
students.” British Columbia Teachers’ Federation

“In 2005 Statistics Canada released a study documenting the dramatic decline of school libraries over the years. It found the median expenditure on the physical collection of libraries (including books and magazines) was a mere $2,000. Even more revealing was the finding that few schools had a full-time
teacher-librarian. Those most affected by this sad state of affairs are families unable to supplement their child’s learning with books and other resources in the home.” - Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives

From 2001–02 to 2007–08, the number of library specialist teachers in B.C. schools declined by 21 percent. – Pieta Wooley

So even though there has been a strong, clear push for overworked teachers to use more technology, the support has not been equally strong. There should be more and more teacher-librarians in schools – why isn’t that occurring?

Works Cited

Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold & underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Froese-Germain, B. (2001). A critical approach to technology - an anti-technology approach: putting education & technology in context. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.1-11). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Oppenheimer, T. (2003). The flickering mind: the false promise of technology in the classroom and how learning can be saved. New York: Random House.


photo by Kevin Dooley

The great techno-push in our schools is killing people skills

photo by Drew Herron


Instead of improving teaching and learning, greater emphasis on computer technology and Internet use often has the result of weakening students’ social skills and eroding opportunities for the elements of learning some have called the “hidden curriculum”. Yes, it’s true – kids will spend hours upon hours sitting in front of computers without any expressed desire to hear a human voice or have any physical contact. And of course, young people have been spending hours watching television or playing videogames as well, but at least they may be doing so with other people. Computers have the potential to become the most isolating, harmfully addictive devices ever unleashed upon an unsuspecting public.

Bernie Froese-Germain (2001) has related some worrying facts about computer-users’ well-being:

“A recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that ‘greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants’ communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness” (p.4) Froese-Germain has also noted that Ursula Franklin has recognized “the potential for computers to isolate students and to make learning more individualistic implies that ‘these implicit learning opportunities can no longer be taken for granted.” (p. 4).

A great deal has been written and said about integrated technology’s ability to help students become more independent learners. But it may be that we are forgetting how increasing technology use alters the classroom in more ways than one, as Heather-jane Robertson (2001) relates:

“Stanford educator Larry Cuban emphasizes what every teacher knows: classrooms are built around relationships, and they aren’t important only to students. ‘The touches, smiles, warmth, and even the frowns, annoyance and anger that pass between teacher and student cement ties that deepen learning and give gratification to teachers.’ Cuban warns that the computer-dominated classrooms dry up this emotional life by unraveling the bonds between teachers and students, and creating false liaisons between students and machine” (p. 35).

As an educator, I feel I must acknowledge that relationships are what students take away from school as much as curricular outcomes. How is integration of technology improving human contact? Why would a student feel that communicating with a person in front of them is important if they can chat online and never have to bother with full sentences, the subtleties of body language, or face-to-face disagreements?

Kevin Whitmore is one educator who has noted that children’s social development had led to the formation of organizations like the Alliance for Childhood, which contends that:

“Those who place their faith in technology to solve the problems of education should look more deeply into the needs of children. The renewal of education requires personal attention to students from good teachers and active p a rents, strongly supported by their communities. It requires commitment to developmentally appropriate education and attention to the full range of children’s real low-tech needs—physical, emotional, and social, as well as cognitive.”

Whitmore goes on to inform that former Education professor Chet Bowers has argued that greater use of computers is leading to “the decline of valuable face-to-face interaction; especially mentoring relationships”.

The central question here is, if students are learning more about computers and computer skills, are they learning less about people and social skills? You may choose to believe that students’ social learning is on the right track today. Some organizations, of course, are working towards more technology skills, without necesarily directly addressing the social needs of learners. One of those groups, 21st Century Skills, or P21, is pushing for more technological know-how, as well as promoting the idea that students can at the same time learn to critically and creatively and work well with others. Sounds good, doesn't it? But a non-profit group of educators has started a group called Common Core that disagrees with the rush for 21st Century Skills, asserting that the direction taken by groups like P21 is squeezing out crucial content, never mind the implicit social learning discussed earlier. It's possible that the great techno-push may have a shoving match on its hands. However, the board of directors for P21 includes members from Intel, Apple, Dell, Adobe, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems. Is this where we should be getting our direction for education? Is it any wonder that people skills are falling by the wayside in our computer-dominated, corporation-backed educational lobbying system?

Works Cited

Froese-Germain, B. (2001). A critical approach to technology - an anti-technology approach: putting education & technology in context. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.1-11). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Robertson, H.-J.. (2001). But it’s only a tool! Deconstructing the defense. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.13-42). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Educational technology has not had a major impact on teaching and learning

• 
  Photo by Sarah G
  
  Educational technology should have had a major impact on teaching and learning by now – it has not.
  
  Many educational technology factions have been predicting that computers would transform and revitalize a staid and sedentary form of learning, but unfortunately the great wave of forward movement hasn’t materialized. Sure, kids have learned how to use Google, Wikipedia, and PowerPoint, and they’ve learned what games and instant messaging applications are accessible in their school. But in general, students and teachers still operate in the same manner, and the integration of educational technology has not advanced education to a substantial degree.
  
  Stanford Professor of Education Larry Cuban (2001) studied how schools used technology and reported in Oversold and Underused that:
  
  · “In the schools we studied, we found no clear and substantial evidence of students increasing their academic achievement as a result of using information technologies (p. 133).
  
  · “…the overwhelming majority of teachers employed the technology to sustain existing patterns of teaching, rather than to innovate…Only a tiny percentage of high school and university teachers used the new technologies to accelerate student-centered and project-based teaching practices.” (p. 134).
  
  · “If anything, what we observed and were told by students suggested strongly that occasional to serious use of computers in their classes had marginal or no impact on routine teaching” (p. 97).
  
  · “…teachers lecture, and students listen, read textbooks and complete individual exercises presented in workbooks or photocopies” (p. 96).
  
  Oppenheimer (2003) has argued that when Cuban “studied how schools have been using technology since the 1980’s, that there was no great accompanying improvement in teaching practices” (p. 313). Since computers have been widely introduced in the 1980s and educational technology has steadily increased, we should expect to see an increase in pedagogical advances as well as an increase in student achievement, but these developments are not readily apparent.
  
  What if researchers observed a number of schools and their computer usage in the classroom for a couple of years, gave teachers every available support and supplied lots of training? Well, that was done at least once with the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow project, but evidence of improvement was still lacking, according to Heather-jane Robertson (2001):
  
  “After two years of total and unlimited access to technology by carefully selected students, whose parents had chosen the program and whose teachers had unlimited amounts of technical and instructional support, the best that Apple could say about the achievement of ACOT students was that they hadn’t declined”(p. 133).
  
  Baker has also echoed Robertson’s assertion, saying that “data collected provide no clear idea of ACOT success or failure, although data on achievement, writing, and attitude suggest that ACOT participation is not depriving students in any way.”
  
  Therefore, according to data from a highly subsidized pilot on educational technology, no great gains were quantified, although students learning was not lessened. However, other studies have shown us a different picture. According to Kevin Whitmore, a study by Thomas Fuchs & Ludger Woessmann entitled “Computers and Student Learning: Bivariate and Multivariate Evidence on the Availability and Use of Computers at Home and at School” tells us:
  
  “For schools and parents who have together invested billions of dollars to give children a learning edge through the latest computer technology, this study brought some sobering news: Too much exposure to computers might spell trouble for the developing mind.
  From a sample of 175,000 15-year-old students in 31 countries, the researchers at the University of Munich announced that performance in maths and reading had suffered significantly among students who have more than one computer at home. And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school, those who used them several times per week at school saw their academic performance decline significantly as well.”
  
  Uh oh. Perhaps our push for greater use of educational technology has not improved learning after all.
  
  Works Cited:
  Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold & underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
  
  Oppenheimer, T. (2003). The flickering mind: the false promise of technology in the classroom and how learning can be saved. New York: Random House.
  
  Robertson, H.-J.. (2001). But it’s only a tool! Deconstructing the defense. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.13-42). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
  
  

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Copyright. Intellectual Property. Intellectual freedom. How many of us think about these issues on a regular basis, or even rarely?

I know some people do. A few years ago I ran across an article I had written which had been copied and posted, unattributed to me, on someone else’s site. I sent an email that said something simple like, “Hey, I noticed you have an article I wrote on your site.” The webmaster wrote back, apologizing, asking which article it was and assuring me that I would be credited properly. In fact, I wasn’t worried about getting credit at all, I was only interested in making a connection with a person who thought enough of my work to post it online. I understand that some people in my shoes may have been hankering for attribution or credit or payment, but I wasn’t. The article was originally published in a magazine that had a limited readership, so I was just stoked that someone had the gumption and ingenuity to prolong the piece’s viewing lifespan and widen readership. It had been published a few years earlier and I had already been paid and received my byline, so if someone could learn or be entertained by it in a new format, more power to the webmaster.

What this incident illustrated to me is that some people placed more importance on crediting others’ work (at least the early years of the World Wide Web) than I did, even when it was my work being copied and pasted. My original article and the magazine it was published in contained little or no opportunity for someone to contact me and request permission for republishing. No harm, no foul.

Fast forward to today, when sharing information, collaborating, and learning in an online setting all offer a myriad of opportunities to steal, plagiarize, copy and paste and generally act irresponsibly (or illegally). Simple guidelines for what constitutes fair use and what is copyright infringement are either not easily accessible or at least not-so-simple for most students or educators.

I have touched in a previous blog on the attitudes and learning habits of digital natives. But today’s computer users and their attitude to copyright and intellectual property deserve a closer examination. David Pogue has related with dismay that according to his very informal research, many digital natives have no compunctions when it comes to downloading music or movies without paying for them. Should it be a surprise that many people today don’t find it necessary to pay for what they find online or worry about attribution or giving credit to others? In fact, the vehemence with which downloaders justify their actions is evident in our wired world, and there are many examples to be found on YouTube. Here’s a short one:



Yet music companies are suing downloaders (and winning!), and anti-piracy ads from the film industry have become ubiquitous. It seems that these real-life instances aren’t affecting peoples’ attitudes about copyright and intellectual property, so the need for direction from educators is clear. Although it may seem that it’s tough to figure out where to begin, Mike Ribble’s Passport to Digital Citizenship could be one place to look at first. The article offers readers a definition of digital citizenship, 9 elements of digital citizenship, and a 4-stage Technology Learning Framework for Teaching Digital Citizenship. One important component of Ribble’s article is that he stresses that because of the disconnect in what is being done in schools and what is done by students in their free time, parents need to be aware of issues within digital citizenship if there is to be some success in helping foster good choices.

And of course aside from downloading music and movies, what are many of those students doing in their free time? Checking out Facebook and MySpace, of course. Annette Lamb’s article Intellectual Freedom for Youth: Social Technology and Social Networks includes some very eloquently stated points. For example, Lamb asserts that social technologies “test the boundaries of intellectual freedom precisely because they provide an open forum for ideas”. It seems like a simple point, but I hadn’t thought of it in that way previously. If we are filtering or blocking social networks in our schools and libraries, are we hindering intellectual freedom? I touched on filtering a few weeks ago on this blog, but Lamb points out that students need to be aware of digital citizenship and copyright as well:

“While social technologies can support the creation of original poetry, music, and scientific data, it also can be a source of negative content, including gossip, violent images, and misinformation. Teens may use adult mediasharing Web sites such as Flickr for photos or YouTube for video. If so, it is essential to help them act responsibly in a social environment not intended for children. Students need to understand how to evaluate Web content, follow copyright laws, and develop effective methods of communication to make optimal use of this environment.” Therefore, if we ignore social networking sites, we may not only be impeding intellectual freedom, but we may be putting student digital citizenship on the backburner.

Also, Helen R. Adams has written about goals for school library media specialists, such as: “Guard against barriers to intellectual freedom, such as age or grade-level restrictions, limitations on access to electronic information, requirements for special permission to use materials and resources, and restricted collections.” If intellectual freedom means that young people should be allowed to access social networks such as Lamb suggests above, then Adams is arguing against filtering. It seems to me we have a long way to go before filtering ends in North American schools.

So what kinds of things can we do to help students learn more about their intellectual freedom and copyright? I think we need to create more resource lists like this one – it helps students find images and sounds that aren’t illegal or morally suspect.
I’m also really excited about the possibilities of Creative Commons, which is described as “a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.” I’ve been using images from Creative Commons for a while now, and the possibilities for students to find pictures, music, written works, and so on and use them responsibly are great. Now, it’s also time for educators to take the idea even farther and help their students to be a part of that community that shares, guiding learners to upload and make the resource banks even larger and richer.

I, and I suspect many others, also need to learn more about what constitutes fair use. Alisa Burch cites North Carolina State University’s copyright tutorial as telling readers that fair use allows the limited use of copyrighted material without prior permission of the copyright holder if the use is a fair one based on these four factors:
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work;
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

In his article Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad ©?, Doug Johnson hit the nail on the head when he wrote that few subjects “spark more disagreement and confusion than copyright. As an information professional, I’m often not certain that I have a firm grasp of it.” I’m not an information professional and am only starting to wrap my head around copyright and the issues surrounding it such as fair use and intellectual freedom. In fact, once you start thinking about copyright and the number of mistakes you or your students may have made, inadvertently or otherwise, it’s easy to go too far the other way and handcuff yourself into not taking advantage of the wide world of resources at your fingertips. Johnson gives an intersting anecdote about looking for permission or assuming permission is not given:

“A Singapore educator once told me that in his country, people tend to suffer from NUTS—the No U-Turn Syndrome—and Americans don’t. When no signs are posted at an intersection, Singapore drivers assume U-turns are illegal; United States drivers assume the opposite. He felt that our “assume it’s OK” attitude gives our country a competitive edge.”

Johnson’s anecdote relates to a fear of what’s “not allowed” and connects to the first of four points:
Change the focus of copyright instruction from what’s forbidden to what’s permitted. When there’s doubt, err on the side of the user. Be prepared to answer questions when a law makes little sense, seems inconsequential, is widely ignored, or when breaking it may serve a higher moral purpose. Teach copyright from the point of view of the producer, as well as the consumer.
To me, Johnson’s greatest point is that as educators, we can help change the focus from what’s “forbidden” to what’s “permitted”; we can be positive about what is legally and morally stable, create lists and links to sites that offer attributed use such as Creative Commons, steer learners to free easy-to-use online citation guides like Noodlebib, and encourage dialogue between students on all of the topics above. The Digiteen Global Project looks like a pretty good start for focused authentic learning. The creators say that Digiteen is a “digital citizenship global project…where schools and classrooms from around the world will discuss issues, research and take action to do with being online in the 21st century. The project also has an Digiteen Ning where students and teachers connect, interact, share multimedia and reflect on their experiences throughout the project”. Wow! Sounds like some educators and students are already tackling most of the tough issues surrounding copyright and digital citizenship.

While we’re feeling pretty positive about the possiblities of using Web 2.0 tools such as Digiteen does become more informed better digital citizens, I’ll leave you with a short video clip that made me stop and think. Although the video is funny (and also unfortunately contains some inappropriate language), it is also poking fun at attempts to curb online movie or music piracy. Aside from pointing out the absurdity of how the word “piracy” is used in this context, the video also mirrors how seriously many people feel about the issue. Don’t you think?

21st Century Digital Boy

http://www.jimcarroll.com/weblog/archives/pictures/baby.jpg


“I’m a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don’t know how to live, but I’ve got a lot of toys” – Brett Gurewitz

The above song lyrics were written circa 1988, but some might say they seem even more phrophetic now. You would be forgiven for thinking that the words were written by a Luddite, but in actuality they were written by a punk rock guitarist/record label head and sung by a vocalist who has Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and teaches life sciences at UCLA.

Many learners today are digital boys and girls, and they have a lot of “toys” – cell phones/Blackberrys, laptops, desktops, Wiis/Playstations/X-Boxes, iPhones, iPods, televisions, and dvd players, not to mention accounts on MySpace, Facebook, Hotmail, gmail, instant messaging and chat sites, and so on. Prensky calls those students who have grown up with digital technology Digital Natives. Prensky goes on to relate a number of issues arising from Digital Natives’ perspectives:

“Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work. (Does any of this sound familiar?)”

Yes, it does sound familiar, and the first points he mentions are important to consider. The last two are problematic for me, though. It’s good to recognize that digital natives “thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards”, but it’s also unrealistic to hope that as educators we can offer those things on a daily basis. I’m not sure anyone gets instant gratification all the time, I know I don’t. Do you? And the point about liking games more than serious work – is this something new? Doesn’t everyone?

Prensky continues to inform that his “own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content.” That is an interesting idea, and one which he seems very confident about – he explains that he can create a game to learn just about anything. But, like instant gratification, I cannot offer that option to my students. I can certainly work towards engaging them in ways that games do, but I can’t develop games in order for my students to hit all of the outcomes in my curriculum. In fact, I don’t want to, either; I don’t think playing games is the only way to develop lifelong learners, and I’m not sure that learning through games will help most students learn about “how to live”, to go back to the quote from Gurewitz. It's not that I don't appreciate positive elements found in gaming (please see my last post about that), I just don't see educators making everything into a game.

At any rate, Prensky has certainly given educators a lot to consider as far as pondering the needs of digital natives. The risk of not properly utilizing technology in schools is that we may widen the chasm between tech use in private time and educational non-tech time. If students are developing skills and interests that educators ignore, it’s possible that some learners won’t “know how to live” – or won’t know how to use some of those skills for purposes other than entertainment or personal/social reasons. Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan argue here that their brain research shows that "new technology can have both positive and negative effects on our brains. Digital natives tend to have greater multi-tasking skills, improved peripheral vision and higher efficiency using technology. However, Digital Immigrants appear to have more advanced people skills - better face to face contact, more ability to solve problems, work in groups, and express empathy". Maybe we need to recognize and remember the positive elements that digital immigrants are bringing to the equation.

Small and Vorgan also have suggested that multitasking may not be such a positive development either.
In their article entitled Is Multitasking Really More Efficient?, the authors suggest that “though multitasking often makes us feel like we are getting more done when we divide our attention, we are not necessarily being more efficient. Studies show that when our brains switch back and forth from one task to another, our neural circuits take a small break in between – a time-consuming process that reduces efficiency. It’s not unlike closing down one computer program and booting up another – it takes a few moments.”

The authors also cite neuroscientists and psychologists while stating that "the bottom line is that the brain seems to work better when implementing a single sustained task than when multitasking, despite most people’s perception that they are doing more and at a faster pace when they multitask." The authors do go on to say that listening to music (if it is music you enjoy) can be helpful to thought processes.

Educators should recognize that digital learners are used to multitasking without expecting that all students will perform better doing more than one thing at a time. Perhaps there are times when listening to music unobtrusively works in the classroom or the library, but there are still times when teacher need to help students to focus on one task. If we all help drive students further towards always doing two or three things at once, I think we would be a doing a number of them a grave disservice. I would say the same about students’ preference for playing games, not to mention all of the other “toys” learners access today: what can educators do to appeal to those who are used to fast-paced environments, quick decision-making and problem-solving opportunities, collaborating with others, learning at individual rates, and so on? First, recognize that we may not be able to change students’ proclivities in these areas (as Prensky suggests). Second, I would hope that educators are already planning with these developments in mind, as well as looking toward what technology can assist these learners.For those of us who can’t create games to teach everything, one good checklist for engaging digital learners can be found at The ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS•T) and Performance Indicators for Teachers.

Furthermore, on an individual and personal level, what games, applications and tools can we easily become a little more familiar with? For example, how many of us have watched or played the most popular games? Don’t many of us make time to read novels that popular with our students? If we really value games as important to our learners and recognize that there may be positive elements in many of these games, shouldn’t we learn a little bit about them? Who’s up for some research?