In the interest of stirring the proverbial pot, I suppose I’ll branch out and make a few somewhat controversial statements. Specifically, I’m about done with technology integration in its current form. Maybe the more politically correct questions is this – what should technology integration training look like? Our Kentucky Education Technology System (KETS) began in 1992. We’re about to celebrate 20 years of this program and, in some ways, the concept of teaching the “integration” of technology into education seems about as dated as seeking to integrate desks or lockers into our schools. It’s been twenty years. At least 95% of our teachers have a computer at home and I would guess that the majority – certainly of the younger teachers – are carrying a computer (e.g. smartphone) with them every day. We’ll revisit those phones in a bit.
On a slightly different note, I recently made the decision to transition from a PC to a Mac. I like the portability of the device and I felt that I needed exposure to that platform. However, nobody is going to sit down with me for a day to help me transition from a PC to a Mac. It may be a ‘clunky’ process, but I’ll get there with the wealth of information on the Internet to help me along. I took this challenge on myself and I’m not the average user, but having to learn the basics is something that I expected to have to do on my own.
Nobody sat down with me (or those teachers noted above) to show me how to use an iPhone. I guarantee that I’m not doing everything with it that I could. It does what I want it to do and that’s not NEARLY what the device can do or what it does for other people, but it does what I want it to do. I’ll probably pick up other uses along the way, but not via specific training offered to me. I’ve “integrated” it into my work life… to a level of my satisfaction and based on my preferences, skill level and desires. What level of “integration” is there exists because I want it to exist, and no level of sit-and-get professional development will cause that integration to rise without my buy-in.
I didn’t get a single training session regarding Facebook or how to use it. Granted, it’s astounding to me to see how some people have chosen to use Facebook. It scares me that degreed professionals have chosen to post some of the things they’ve posted. I probably posted a few things that I shouldn’t have. As previously documented on this site, I’m out on Facebook. Today’s point, though, is that I didn’t receive any training on the use of the site.
I’m thinking of some of the things that we expect of our kids and the things that we see from them. First, they haven’t been trained on these technologies. However, we universally acknowledge in a blanket stereotype that “these kids know about technology.” This has been the mantra for as long as I can remember – I was the youngster who could program the VCR clock to stop advertising a blinking 12:00 time. Maybe they weren’t user-friendly devices, but kids then “weren’t afraid” of the technology and we rightfully take notice that people learn by doing. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook or some new device, the best way to learn how to do something is to try it. Thus, I’m fine with technology training that introduces teachers to resources and forces them to do. There can be too much of that and my personal preference is to dive a bit deeper on fewer resources to avoid overwhelming teachers with too many different things to absorb. However, we should follow the examples around us and promote any attempt at the use of the tools around us.
By nature, that probably means that we need to promote the fact that it’s OK to fail while you learn. There are limits to this. While learning to use Facebook with your students, you can’t just ask them for their passwords when you’re suspicious of their activity. If a teacher has a work-related Twitter accounts that students follow, I would advise against tweets about a rough night on the town. Let’s step back, though, and realize that the technology is just magnifying and broadcasting bad judgment. The technology didn’t cause the bad judgment. While we often kneejerk to block these tools because of people’s bad judgment, maybe we should use the tools to expose bad judgment and deal with the extreme cases that may arise.
Hold it… the point I was making was that it’s OK to fail (within reason). If a teacher asks students to tweet about a particular article or assignment, it may or may not go well. That depends on many factors, but we probably need to do a better job of applauding the effort. Teddy Roosevelt said, “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” I hope we’re looking at classrooms and assignments and seeing evidence that different tactics are being attempted. There’s a world of information out there and students can succeed in different ways.
Here’s another trend-bending concept – I don’t think that one size fits all and it may be time to scrap that concept. I’ve gone through a great number of schools that have standard pieces of technology in set locations. Every classroom might have a projector, interactive whiteboard, document camera, student response systems (e.g. ‘clickers’), wireless slate or some subset of these pieces. The most common example I see is related to the interactive whiteboard. I hear complaints that the boards aren’t used or, if they are, they aren’t really used for their interactive capabilities. If you’re capturing and saving (for later use) the notes that are written on the interactive board, I would argue that you’re really using the board. If you’re watching a movie via the projector, the IWB is an expensive white screen. How many ‘student computers’ are there? Two or three in the back of every classroom?
I’m not 100% sure on how to get there, but the focus for technology deployment needs to be on what is being used, by whom and for what purpose. If a teacher is highly effective and makes no use of a document camera, we shouldn’t force its use. It would take more time and more effort to support, but customizing a room’s technology to a teacher’s strengths is a concept worth investigating. With today’s mobility, teachers and students should have access to technology when and where they need it. That should be our goal and, too often, we get caught in the trap of replacement cycles and the assumption that an equitable learning opportunity means that every school and room looks exactly the same. It doesn’t have to be that way, though it may take some convincing for others in the school district to agree. Before such a concept could take hold, we would have to embrace the fact that teachers couldn’t regularly change classrooms if a room has been customized to his/her strengths.
Maybe that’s the balance that I’m trying to strike in this post. You can find thousands of articles that discussing “treating teachers like professionals.” Many will lead to a debate on salaries, so I’ll avoid linking that topic and point out that part of treating a teacher like a professional is to provide the technology tools to help them be as effective as possible. Likewise, I think it’s completely fair to expect that a professional will actively seek to take full advantage of these tools – based primarily on their own desire to improve and not to simply check an evaluation box.
I’ll confess that this has been weighing on my mind because of a recent comment I received that (pertaining to the use of technology in instruction) “…many teachers see technology as something else they have to do rather than a tool to help them.” Comments like that frustrate me because, as I said, we’ve been at the task of “integrating” technology for 20 years and the glass-half-empty side of me says that if it’s not integrated by now, it’s because somebody doesn’t want to do so. I don’t want to sound too critical of our teachers because they have an oftentimes thankless job and have a LOT on their collective plates, so I’ll ask something similar to what I wrote at the beginning – what needs to occur (if anything) to see technology more integrated into the educational process?
[Image: back by popular demand, Paintbrush artwork. I’d better not quit my day job]