Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
CAUTION!: Technology
March 8-9, 2012
9:30-10:15
CAUTION!: Technology
P. L. Thomas, EdD
Associate Professor of Education
Furman University
UPDATE:
Larry Cuban, Answering the Big Question on New Technology in Schools: Does It Work? (Part 1)
UPDATE:
Larry Cuban, Answering the Big Question on New Technology in Schools: Does It Work? (Part 1)
Author Kurt Vonnegut quipped, “Novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.” As with novels, so with schools, I believe, but we must take one step beyond “whether schools should address technology” to “how.”
In Walden, Henry David Thoreau offered two warnings that should guide how we approach technology: “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate,” and, “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.”
It's a Book, Lane Smith
Shifting from seeking technology for technology's sake to critical technological awareness
• Caution: Inflated costs (market forces) in state-of-the-art technology
• Caution: Pursuing state-of-the-art technology is self-defeating since "state-of-the-art" is a moving target; teaching students to use state-of-the-art technology fails to recognize that it will be "old" technology once students leave school. Also, state-of-the-art technology has a high risk/reward factor since many "new" gadgets fail and many "new" upgrades fizzle. Consider the storage facilities at schools filled with cables, software, out-dated hardware, and the LaserDisk players that never caught on.
• Caution: New technology has inflated costs AND embedded costs related to repair and upgrades.
• Caution: Adding new technology or upgrading existing technology requires added time spent for teachers (in-service) and students to learn the technology itself, draining time better served on teaching and learning themselves.
• Caution: Research base, although sparse, does not support a positive role for technology in improving teaching/learning, and evidence we have shows teachers rarely use technology provided (EdWeek synthesis of research on technology):
"That study found that most of the schools that have integrated laptops and other digital tools into learning are not maximizing the use of those devices in ways that best make use of their potential."
From "Who really benefits from putting high-tech gadgets in classrooms?" (Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2012):
"Almost every generation has been subjected in its formative years to some 'groundbreaking' pedagogical technology. In the '60s and '70s, 'instructional TV was going to revolutionize everything,' recalls Thomas C. Reeves, an instructional technology expert at the University of Georgia. 'But the notion that a good teacher would be just as effective on videotape is not the case.'
"Many would-be educational innovators treat technology as an end-all and be-all, making no effort to figure out how to integrate it into the classroom. 'Computers, in and of themselves, do very little to aid learning,' Gavriel Salomon of the University of Haifa and David Perkins of Harvard observed in 1996. Placing them in the classroom 'does not automatically inspire teachers to rethink their teaching or students to adopt new modes of learning.'
"...In 2009, the Education Department released a study of whether math and reading software helped student achievement in first, fourth, and sixth grades, based on testing in hundreds of classrooms. The study found that the difference in test scores between the software-using classes and the control group was 'not statistically different from zero.' In sixth-grade math, students who used software got lower test scores — and the effect got significantly worse in the second year of use. "
• Caution: Seeking to close GAPS (equity, achievement, technology) found in the lives of children (children in poverty, disadvantaged; children in affluence, privileged) through education presents a paradox: As Walt Gardner has succinctly explained: "Don't forget that advantaged children are not standing still in the interim. They continue to benefit from travel and other enriching learning experiences. As a result, the gap will persist."
• Caution: Begin with educational (teaching/learning) NEEDS, not the allure of new technology.
References
Thomas, P. L. (2012, January 3). A misguided use of money. Room for Debate. The New York Times.
-----. (2011, December 2). No. At Issue in CQ Researcher, p. 1017. http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Friday, January 6, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Room for Debate (NYT): A Misguided Use of Money
A Misguided Use of Money
Paul Thomas, a public high school English teacher for 18 years, is an associate professor of education at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. You can follow his work at Radical Scholarship and on Twitter at @plthomasEdD.
January 3, 2012
[unedited submission]
Reforming education in the U.S. often includes seeking new technology in order to improve teaching and learning. Instead of buying the latest gadgets, however, our schools should provide students with critical technological awareness, achievable at little cost and without the newest hardware.
We rarely consider the negative implications for acquiring the newest “smart” board or providing tablets for every student—chasing the next new technology without evaluating learning needs or how gadgets uniquely address those needs. Ironically, we buy into the consumerism inherent in technology (Gadget 2.0 pales against Gadget 3.0) without taking full account of the tremendous financial investments diverted to technology.
Technology is a tool to assist learning. School closets and storage facilities across the U.S., though, are filled with cables, monitors, and hardware costing millions of dollars, now useless, replaced by the newest gadget. Notably, consider one artifact now covered in dust, the Laserdisc video player (soon to be joined by interactive “smart” boards).
Chalk board, marker board, “smart” board—this sequence has not improved teaching or learning, but has created increased costs for schools and profits for manufacturers. Little research exists showing positive outcomes from technology—although we do have this caution: One “study found that most of the schools that have integrated laptops and other digital tools into learning are not maximizing the use of those devices in ways that best make use of their potential.”
Access to technology reflects and contributes to the growing income inequity plaguing society and schools. As technology blossoms, access to it expands the gap between the affluent and impoverished. Even when we introduce technology into schools, affluent students’ having more experience with it in their full lives leaves impoverished students always behind.
Viewing The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian on a Kindle, on an iPad, or as a paperback proves irrelevant if children do not want to read, struggle to comprehend text, or lack the critical literacy to interact with text in complex and meaningful ways that are personal and communal.
Schools should not invest in the newest technology, or the inflated cost of cutting-edge gadgets. Students deserve, though, technological awareness and critical understanding of the role of technology in their lives and society. Empowered teachers and students will choose to use technology, or not, instead of being blinded by the newness of the next gadget release.
Today, we’d do well to heed Henry David Thoreau: “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.”
Sunday, December 4, 2011
The CQ Researcher Online
The CQ Researcher Online
Should schools use as much digital technology as they can afford?
"No"
Should schools use as much digital technology as they can afford?
"No"
PAUL THOMAS
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION,
FURMAN UNIVERSITY
WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, NOVEMBER 2011
Technology represents the essence of American consumerism by feeding our popular clamor for acquiring the current hot thing. Yet the ever-increasing significance of technology in our daily lives and its contribution to powerful advances as well as a widening equity gap place education in a complex paradox.
Author Kurt Vonnegut quipped, “Novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.” As with novels, so with schools, I believe, but we must take one step beyond “whether schools should address technology” to “how.”
Two experiences from my 18 years teaching high school English inform my belief that schools should not incorporate as much digital technology as finances allow. I began teaching in the 1980s during the rise of MTV and witnessed my field make a claim that text was dead, and thus English teaching had to shift to the brave new video world-failing to anticipate instant messaging, email, texting, blogging and the text-rich social-media boom.
The intersection of technology’s unknowable future, its inflated costs, and its inevitable obsolescence must give us pause as we spend public funds. Let me suggest simply looking into the closets and storage facilities at schools across the United States, where cables, monitors and other artifacts costing millions of dollars lie useless, replaced by the next-best thing we then had to acquire. In fact, just think of one thing, the Laserdisc video player (soon to be joined by interactive “smart” whiteboards in those closets).
Chalk board, marker board, interactive board-this sequence has not insured better teaching or learning, but has guaranteed greater costs for schools and profits for manufacturers.
In Walden, Henry David Thoreau offered two warnings that should guide how we approach technology: “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate,” and, “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.”
The foundational principles of public education for democracy and human agency must not fall prey to preparing children for the future by perpetually acquiring new technology because we can never know that future. Thus, we must not squander public funds on ever-changing technology but instead focus on the human interaction that is teaching and learning as well as the critical literacy and numeracy every child needs. We can anticipate only one fact of our futures — change.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
CQ Researcher: December 2, 2011
See my commentary on technology in education (direct link posted when available):
Thomas, P. L. (2011, December 2). No. At Issue in CQ Researcher. http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Thomas, P. L. (2011, December 2). No. At Issue in CQ Researcher. http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Thursday, October 27, 2011
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