Our obligation to prepare students for what is and will be, not what was
August 30, 2010
3 Comments
Here’s a comment I just left over at another blog:
Thank you for your thoughtful extension of the conversation at my blog. I always appreciate when others express their misgivings about my posts because it forces me to clarify my own thinking and message.
I don’t think the answer to everything in education is technology. But I DO think it’s important for schools to be relevant to the age in which they operate. Given that we now live in a digital, globally-interconnected era, I think schools owe it to their students to be up with the times. And we don’t do that by having our kids spend 90+% of their time in lecture-, textbook-, and notebook paper-driven learning environments. The gaps between how we learn in the real world and what schools do has never been greater. Those gaps continue to increase every year, as the pace of change inside school is dwarfed by that outside of school. What’s our moral / ethical / professional obligation as school leaders to prepare students for the world as it is and will be, not what was? I think it’s pretty high.
You note that students aren’t using the technology for anything ‘meaningful.’ Why would they be? Have their schools, teachers, or parents helped them understand the power of using digital technologies for productive work within the relevant discipline of study? Most have not, instead utilizing technology primarily for replicating factory, rather than information age, models of schooling. Absent productive use and modeling by their instructors and/or parents, of course students are going to use technology primarily for social purposes (just like we adults do).
The jab at my advisory board membership is undeserved, particularly given that I have yet to receive a dime from any corporation for that type of service.
Finally, I’ll note that the post in question was not a poke-in-the-eye aimed at teachers but rather the educational system as a whole. As school leaders, we have much greater influence over ‘the system’ than classroom teachers do. And it behooves us to make some radical changes quickly if schools are not to be completely irrelevant to the needs of students, families, and society.
Image credit: 25/365
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I wholeheartedly agree – technology, just like anything else, can be used in unproductive and unmeaningful ways. In addition, technology is changing so rapidly that sometimes it seems hard to keep up.
But, it’s important to note how these tools can be used in productive and supportive ways. It may not be about using a particular technology in the classroom; rather, it can be as simple as integrating a new technology into your current curriculum so that you can engage and empower students in a new and exciting way. Show them how to use technology, whatever the platform is, so that the next time something new comes along, they’re prepared to tackle it and utilize it in the most effective way.
Thank you for your passionate and thoughtful post!
In my recent experience of integrating technology into my classroom, I’ve found that the mode of communication changes but several elements of classroom do not change.
The changes are easily adaptable. Almost everyone agrees that combining visual with audio with opens more pathways in the brain to content/information. Technology provides easier and more professional-looking ways of preparing presentations.
What stays the same is the need students have to be engaged as active learners, not passive receptacles. (That’s an old, old idea that still sticks like tar in the minds of too many teachers.)
Technology provides ways for students to enrich even the most elaborate and complex presentation a teacher can provide.
When you want to buy a car, a computer, clothing, or tickets, the first place you go is . . . Well, it’s not the Sears catalogue!
I completely agree. As both a parent of a HS student and an elementary school technology leader, I see the difference using technology effectively has made.
I can tell you that my son is completely bored with the rote memorization, lack of creativity, irrelevant facts and course work, and ban on all forms of communication with the outside world at his school. He gets good grades, but it is because he has learned how to work the system of standardized tests.
I can also tell you that at my elementary school, where technology is completely integrated in every subject, campus wide, in grades K-6, we maintain a consistently high API, receive state and federal recognition for our instructional programs and focus, and most importantly, our students are engaged and happily on their way to becoming life-long learners.
Our computers and wired devices are not used just to complete presentations which simply demonstrate understanding of content knowledge, but are used to allow the student to create and communicate new ideas, related to the content, that are more relevant to their life. Our students use online tools to write stories, keep journals and share math practice with other kids around the world. They design new toys or build digital houses. They write music and paint digital pictures. They are engaged with the subject matter because they have to think about all those facts they’ve learned in their textbooks, and at least for a time, not focus on the test.
I guess the bottom line is this: If the content they are expected to learn is not interesting to them, they are not engaged. If they are not being asked to think critically in their learning, they are not engaged. It wont matter what tools or technology you use. However, today’s technology resources are available 24/7 and allow us to reach and engage students in ways we never could before. This is paying off big-time at my school.