Techlearning blog

High paid lobbyists from the giants of the technology industry began putting pressure on the members of the legislature to buy laptops for the school children of Texas instead of funding the kid's textbooks...somehow these high paid lobbyists nurtured the "myth" that laptops were books and that textbooks with traditional print were "dinosaurs" and needed to go away.

Part of me agrees with this point. After all, it's no surprise that the technology giants want to sell their product. That's why I have left the ranks of those who advocate wholesale purchase of new proprietary software solutions. That's why I'm pushing open source tools instead of MS Windows, MS Office, Inspiration/Kidspiration, anti-virus/spyware tools, and more. We just don't have the money to throw away anymore...it's like arguing about whether we're going to buy the $5 shovel or the $25 shovel, not realizing that if we don't equip our students with the tools, they won't be able to tend our respective gardens...and that's just too dangerous to contemplate. Wasteful spending can't continue with each subsequent wave of investment.

I'm so tempted to give into the idea that we're just throwing away our money on technology because most people in education--including legislators and folks at the "top"--just don't get it. But, then I remember. As we agonize over what technology means in U.S. Schools, schools in India and China are equipping their children with the tools that will make them the most powerful nations on Earth. I remember that just recently the following was true:

1. China will install a total of 141,624 new desktop computers running Linux in school classrooms this year.
2. India:The company said it had joined with local technology firm HCL Infosystems to sell a personal computer for less than 10,000 rupees (220 dollars) to boost ownership in the nation of one-billion plus people with only 15 million users. India's technology minister said earlier this year that the government wants the number of personal computers to swell to 50 million
3. Eleven countries outperformed the United States, and four scored similarly. None scored significantly below the United States.
4. Last year more than 600,000 engineers graduated from institutions of higher education in China. In India, the figure was 350,000. In America, it was about 70,000.
5. Korea: Korea boasts of the world’s best per-capita penetration of the high-speed Internet with roughly 12 million of 15.5 million households hooked up to the always-on Internet.
6. Korea: In the first stage, Korea Post will install the Linux-based operating system on 4,748 PCs for customers in 2,800 branches across the country. Korea Post said cost is a major reason for the shift to Linux as the agency expects the replacement will save it 850 million won ($818,000) every year.
7. Brazil: Linux going to French schools, as in Brazil and other places, is what can lower the cost of technology implementations, can shift the focus from technology in our hardware and software to the technology in our children.

Sheesh...while most of us are arguing about using technology in schools, others are already doing it. Why is that? Simple--we have a vested interest in keeping technology out of the classroom. Our educational systems are so flawed--focused on testing rather than higher order thinking skills development through approaches such as problem-based learning--that teachers have to swim upstream to use technology rather than make it work. We're too caught up in lock-step scope and sequences.

We throw away money on the latest new technologies when we haven't even learned to use the old ones. And, yet, it is the new technologies that are free that we reject most vehemently--as if we could afford it. Soon, we will make true the idiom, "Beggars can't be choosy." We are on a perpetual spending spree, buying and buying hardware and software as if that was the right thing to do. But the right thing to do wasn't to just buy this stuff, it was to use it. It was to transform how we taught and learned...and though we wanted the credit for changing education, it was seldom funded or supported. We equated technology purchases with doing the right thing...and now we're broke. It makes sense that Tinsy believes as she does. Laptops aren't books, they are gateways to a whole new virtual world. The software that goes on them doesn't have to cost $1000 per machine...but it does have to be there. Forget the multimedia laptop at the level of an Apple iBook. I would be happy if my children just had the basic tools, especially if they had Linux on them. I'd rather we had textbooks AND laptops.

Most people know that a laptop/computer device is not a book. A laptop is to "instructional materials" what a desk is for a "classroom." These are devices that are not instructional in nature but are "furniture" that we use to facilitate the instructional material. As with the student occupying the desks, the disc/software that goes inside and/or occupies the laptop/computer is the actual "instructional material" that creates an electronic format.

This places the emphasis on the textbook as the primary document students learn from. It is old world thinking. Just as we no longer have the luxury of spending money to purchase the latest educational tech fad, we can't afford to think that only a small number of publishers have cornered the market on the truth. That's right, we no longer have the benefit of hiding our children behind textbooks that represent a socially-acceptable point of view. For the one thing, some kids don't want to be a part of that socially acceptable point of view...at least, not without taking a good luck at the other points of view. Some want to rebel, to look at the world through "techni-color" glasses. Let's wake up and realize that the laptop opens the door to primary sources on the Internet. Do we really care that kids are using MS Office or Windows? No. That's an ADULT concern. It's the concern of technicians who are afraid of having to start over with a new frame of reference...but that's exactly what will happen to our kids if we don't step up and divest ourselves of archaic textbook-type thinking.

Consider that technology use in "the world" reflects such a radical approach that even technology directors are debating the use of blogs, podcasting, wikis in schools. It's as if we're all realizing that the curriculum in our schools, what we've done for the last 100 years is IRRELEVANT. What is that matters? What are those skills our children need? It's not rote memorization, although that's handy to have. It's not working your way through a page of problems, although that can help you understand the process. It's putting all that into action in the context of a real life problem, developing a solution that works. It's problem-based learning, but we're too afraid to admit that the way we approach school is obsolete and that technology used in that way is just an add-on. Imagine a school that has access to mobile laptop carts, but never uses them...because the education system in that school is so archaic that technology has no place.

It's not that technologists have to make room for technology in core-content classrooms. It's that technology-using, problem-based learning have to make room for the insular, isolationist instructional methodologies that set teachers up as demi-gods and students as...seals doing tricks for sardines.

The technology industry giants would profit greatly in selling laptops to 1200 Texas school districts to over 4 million school children with half in middle and high school. . .the solution to pay for laptops would come from The Permanent School Fund (PSF) normally referred to as "The Children's Textbook Fund." By calling a laptop device "instructional material", it would qualify for the money from the Permanent School Fund. The PSF will be drained with little money left over for "real" instructional materials such as traditional printed textbooks and electronic software.

This is right on target. We shouldn't be spending $1200 per laptop when households in India are getting them for $220 and Negroponte is advocating for the $100 laptop. But, America is the most powerful nation, the richest and, by gosh, we will have the best that money can buy. And, because we're caught up in the best money can buy, we're not buying anything and our children are falling behind.

I always wondered what strident voices sounded like. Now I know. They are the voices of adults afraid to drop their notions of what schooling is, what technology should be in schools, and how often that technology should be updated. The PSF should be drained, but it should be drained spectacularly and the focus should be on providing $100 laptops for Texas school children--every child from 3rd through 12--with quality instructional materials that are served via the Web, whether through Wikibooks or primary sources available. If I could teach a class without a textbook, using available resources, focused on strategies in a world where content is out there for discovery, then, why can't classroom teachers do the same? Simple answer to that one...because we won't let them.

Protect the PSF (the kid's textbook fund) in peretuity for "real and actual" instructional materials...not for hardware devices, such as: laptops.

When I stepped into the classroom so many years ago, I wanted my students to write. I wanted with a passion so deep that it spilled over into my voice when sharing mini-lessons on writing, the intentness of my gaze, my willingness to listen and reflect and write and share what I'd written. It was a passion that ignited them, that made them excited because they could feel the power of being a writer. It didn't matter if they were bilingual/ESL, regular or Gifted & Talented. What mattered was that they found the stories in their lives. How I wished we'd had more computers, more ways of publishing their work, taking the difficulty of printing out of the writing process, made them each an editor...but that was something we did periodically.

In today's schools, blogs and podcasts have the power to empower children and teachers to share their story. But, the fact is, we don't want to let them do that. We want them to conform to our way of thinking, a lock-step curriculum that has no need for technology. Sadly, the day is coming when we will not have a need for these places, these pockets of antiquity peopled by over-burdened subject matter experts ruled by meticulous administrators standing guard over that which would threaten the status quo.

Geraldine Miller, you are right and wrong. Wake up and realize that textbooks are obsolete, not because information changes daily, but because the educational system they are a part of is so archaic that it will crumble to dust in the next 10-20 years.