Do we really need tech?
June 4, 2009
When T&L blogger Ben Grey asked the question “Why are we using technology?” we were flooded with reader responses. In his blog, he writes:
I'm hearing more and more important decision makers asking, “Why are we using technology?” I've heard from several colleagues in various states that there is pressure mounting to cut both future and existing plans to increase technology utilization in their districts. The federal stimulus package, while certainly helpful, hasn't proven to be enough to reassure many of the districts. Beyond the economy, a more disheartening line of logic is being taken to trim back: Where is the increase in student achievement? To the general public, student achievement is most often measured and manifested as test scores. A reality is that there are many districts that have been increasing the use of technology in the classroom steadily over the past ten years, yet their test scores remain static.
So, why technology? Here are some highlights from
reader responses:
It's a great question and one that I've had to answer as an assistant superintendent for instruction. I tell the board: (1) We must move from a top-down broadcast model of communications to one that fosters creativity and collaboration; (2) many of our students have access to digital tools only in our schools, and they have the right to participate in the digital age; (3) investing in technology should not be a thoughtless response—new technology does not necessarily improve instruction; and (4) we should continue to look for a ROI on our technology investments, but it may not be tracked in test scores that simply measure lower-order recall of information.
—Peter
Senior administrative staff, and most folks who don't do tech, have little idea of what we actually do every day and what it means to our school districts. Tech leaders need to be communicating regularly in accessible terms about their goals, plans, accomplishments, and yes, even setbacks.
—wmchamberlain
Schools are asking this question, and for a good reason. In a well-functioning learning environment, every support resource, including technology, should justify its status on a regular basis.
—Curt
While the standardized test scores may show no increase in the scores of schools heavily invested in technology, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. My students use technology to consume and create content. The higher-level thinking skills required to do this would be very hard to test using standardized multiple-choice and short-answerquestion tests.
—Joshua
Do we hear the question “Why should your district continue to use and pursue pencils, paper, maps, books, calculators”? Until “tech” is no longer seen as an addition but a constant, it will always be debated, questioned, and ignored.
—Jennifer
The problem isn't the technology; the problem is the test. The standardized tests we use can't assess the learning that technology produces, and technology doesn't necessarily produce the sort of learning assessable by standardized testing.
—Deven
.
| COMMENTS (1) | | Tamara - 06/04/2009 | | I don't think the issue is about the particular "materiality" of the tools being used; rather, it's about how digital tools are being integrated into the curricular domains of knowledge.
There is a very real concern that clear and consistent connections are not being made between the various possible uses of digital technology in classrooms and the curricular standards one tends to see in school district systems. I agree that it's not likely that the present-day standardized testing formats students regularly encounter cover many (possibly any) of the major aspects of learning from and with digital tools. However, pushing buttons in a prescribed orders of sequence dictated by 'XYZ software company'; or programming "low-order" problem sets without any training in logic; or re-organizing multimedia chunks of "digital content" pulled haphazardly from the Internet in a vague attempt at "mash-up creativity"---all these do not really reflect appropriate uses of technology for learning. It's monketying around on computers, not the kind of exploration that arises from deep learning and study. Unfortunately, these kinds of "uses" of digital technology occur quite frequently in many U.S. public school systems.
I think that we need curricular content and technology specialists working openly alongside in-service teachers in a mutually collaborative and respectful manner to bring these new media tools into the learning environment in more effective and efficient ways. The manner in which we tend to introduce digital technology into the curriculum (read: handed down through several intermediate levels of bureaucracy) is not particularly conducive to students' "higher-order learning", and is frustrating to in-classroom educators as well. |
|
|
|
More...
|
|
|
|
|
|