A good friend of mine who teaches high school wrote this keep-the-computers-out-of-the-classrooms polemic. As you might guess, I don’t quite agree with everything he says, although I love the fact that a high school English teacher leads off with Stooges lyrics. His joke about Velcro got me thinking, though, about the ways we frame our discussions of computers.
Consider three examples:
- Someone poses the question, “Does technology help learning?” For many people, the impulse is to immediately respond, “Well, yes. Of course.”
- Someone poses the question, “Do computers help learning?” For many people, the impulse is to immediately respond, “Well, yes. Of course.”
- Someone poses the question, “Does Velcro help learning?” (Velcro is, after all, a technology.) For many people, the impulse is to immediately respond, “. . . Whahuh?”
If you think long enough about it, I’m sure that you can come up with some possible ways in which Velcro can be put to productive pedagogical uses. And that’s kind of the point: we’re so smitten with the computer as fetishized object that we’re blind to the particulars of pedagogical context and practice. (Charles Moran and Pat Hunter critique this inattention in their excellent essay, “Writing Teachers, Schools, Access, and Change,” in Todd Taylor and Irene Ward’s Literacy Theory in the Age of the Internet.)
Thanks for the insight, Jay.
I’ve said this before, but refrigeration is a technology that may be an even better example than Velcro. It never comes into the conversation, but just have the electricity go off and have the cafeteria food spoil, or the air conditioning go down on a hot day.
I was almost tempted to acknowledge that perspective of yours in the post, John, but the Velcro angle just felt too good and too comedically surreal. I did have it in mind, but somehow, “Does Velcro help learning?” just felt so much more wonderfully silly and obtuse than “Does refrigeration help learning?”
Any thoughts on Jason’s brief screed? He’s a fine and brilliant teacher, and I wonder — with our recent concerns about online teaching materials and institutional transferability — how far this conversation might go. Please, remind me: are you involved with any of the National Writing Project programs? What do you think of the links they offer between secondary and postsecondary writing instruction?
I’ve been aware of the work of the Bay Area writing project (where it all began, I believe) and I’ve had contact tangentially with other writing projects in the area.
For reasons I’ve never fully understood, two-year college faculty haven’t taken to the Writing Project approach in any significant numbers. It’s likely related to the general issues I’ve commented on before, where CC faculty would probably be the most experienced in dealing with a range of writing, but the university faculty were the ones driving the program.
I have seen it make huge differences in high school programs where several faculty had the experience. My former next door neighbor teaches history at a nearby high school. The summer he did the Writing Project we had lots of over-the-fence chats about his experience, which he found transformative.
As for Jason’s screed, I’ve had these conversation numerous times with several colleagues here. They rightly place the emphasis on the human connection with students. One should not become enamored of machines and systems over people. What I have found–and our connection is just one of many examples–is that the technology does foster human connectedness. And, as was our experience, people who connect on line usually find a way to meet face to face.
I teach a hybrid course for the very reason that all the forms of human communication need to be honored, including seeing the non-verbal cues each of us sends.
“is refrigeration a technology”–I think a really profound difference between those born after about…mnnn 1965? and before is the INVISIBILITY of the layers of technology.
This may be a trivial example, but it seems telling to me: before abut 1965, when you went into a lot of grocery stores,at the butcher counter you would see whole carcasses–beeves and lamb–in the refrigerator. A child would have an intuitive understanding that burger came from a live being (for example).
Maybe it was earlier–when the percentage of the population involved in farming dropped. Folks who grow up in a farming economy (even if their families aren’t directly involved in farming) have an awareness of the ongoing kind of labor that gets food on the table.
What does this have to do with technology in education? I think it is educational to teach kids awareness of the invisible. This laptop I’m writing on runs off software that a group of somebodies labored over (and those bodies had education); the case was designed by–; the materials were mined by–; the people who put it in the package–; (you get the idea)
it just doens’t magically out of no where, with no one’s hard labor, end up on my lap.
I find myself sitting here at your site feeling a little foolish. I just typed into Google, “does technology help learning”. I am searching for articles to support my research paper for my final master’s degree class.
The whole point of my research is to find out why some students succeed on educational software products and why some students decide not to use the products at all.
I get a little different picture now. Maybe some students don’t mind playing with Velcro, don’t mind playing with the device long enough to find out its niche in relation to their needs. And maybe some students don’t have the patients to play with Velcro, at least without being convinced that the device will benefit them.
Thanks,
I will be a little more focused next time.
Anonymous — as you’ve seen, it’s all about defining the term “technology.” Maybe Google doesn’t help learning: thousands of years ago, Plato wrote the Phaedrus, which was all about the fancy new technology of writing, and its educational possibilities. He wasn’t optimistic.
Maybe a better question might be: what educational software products are being offered to which students — and why do the other students ‘refuse’ those products?