In much the same way the condemnation of certain behaviors must continue even when a new technology provides a different opportunity for that rejected behavior. I say it is wrong for one student to have another student do their homework for them. It is wrong to have another student provide answers to a worksheet for another student. It is wrong to have a student copy the works of another person and pass that off as his or her own. It was wrong when it was handing the other you worksheet to fill out; it was wrong when it was copying the answers from them; it is wrong now when that exchange happens through any digital medium. Computers/Internet/FaceBook is not the problem: the application of those technologies is.

The error is in justification of practice based on application. Using technology is not intrinsically good just because children have been labeled “digital learners.” There is still right and wrong; there are still good practices.

Didn’t Bellerophon teach us anything? (A shout out to Brent Froberg)

btw, when did the pejorative “Slacker Generation” become the affirming “Millennial Learners?” This generation has demonstrated some powerful spin.

I really appreciate all the contributors to your blog this week.

The beauty of the blog is that it promotes thoughtful answers and focus. Unlike the classroom (and teacher meetings), we choose to read and reflect in a blog. We take our turn.

Why do discussions of technology upset so many teachers?

First, technology often makes me feel dumb. Whether it’s my car or my laptop, there is a growing list of things I don’t know. My antique VHS player still blinks 12:00! When my son and daughter-in law were in a car accident last weekend, I had to learn text messaging quite fast. Not comfortable.

Second, technology has pushed up against the raw nerve of the question, “What is a teacher?”

If we are the ’sage on the stage’ with a vast body of knowledge and experience to be shared, historically, because of the scaricity of books, then it is possible for any child with a good net-accessed cellphone and a sense of inquiry to trump our knowledge. As SOB put it in a Google class five years ago, “There is no knowledge that cannot be found on the ‘net.”

True. There are billions of sites on the net. Though knowledge is changing daily, at breakneck speed, it takes a skilled teacher to make knowledge relevant to learning.

If the image of the modern teacher is one of synthesizer, guide and mentor, we may see ourselves as the ringmaster of the circus or the conductor of the orchestra. Though the ringmaster directs the action, we know he is largely ceremonial. I like the conductor model. She/he usually selects the music, prepares the musicians, sets the tempo and directs the orchestra. The conductor knows the objectives and can understand all of the musicians. The conductor sets the terms and conditions of the music to be enjoyed.

I suggest that we are aiming way too low if we see our role as one who transmits the knowlege needed to get all children above average on the NCLB test.

At our best, teachers help learners to be relevant, useful and thoughtful. (By the way, “relevance” IS a term from the 60’s, where no educator I know caved in to “getting high”, though ‘higher’ ed consistently caved in to the demand that our college educations be relevant. Classes were dropped because no one enrolled. Oh, and we also the young who stopped a war and insisted on civil rights for all, but I digress.)

Wait! That thought may not be a digression. As Will Richardson says, “This is the first generation in history for older teachers to use the tools of the new generation to teach that younger generation.”

The bloggers have written about a wide array of problems, from cell phones and texting, to lazyness and short attention spans. Thank you all.

The biggest conundrum of all is what to do about an enterainment-driven youth culture that can go beyond the walls of schools where grades and Carnegie Units represent learning. As CF, a colleague who is also a millenial, wrote above, “II don’t learn … from teachers anymore. I google. I tutorialize myself.”

I asked, “What is a teacher?” He asks, as effective learners always have, “What do you have that I need?”

How exciting is that? Who wouldn’t like to teach him?

JHH

I like writing. Although I do not put pen to paper as I used to, I regret not writing the pages to friends that I one wrote and received back. There was content in those pages, meaningful, magnificient content.

When I look at MySpace/FaceBook or any other TwoWordInToOne social network site, I cringe. It’s not that people can communicate that creates that reaction, but the communication that is created and fostered. E-mail suffers the same way. Networking has become the substitute for communicating. Touching base, creating connections, making “friends” is all so superficial. Those technologies require no thought or investment of self to create connections – just the click of a “request friend” button and the accompanying “accept friend” button. Two people click buttons and are friends; people click buttons and they are keeping all 23,475 of their friends up do date, minute-by-minute of their excitement level in Advanced Algebra (over half their communication is about “education” after all).

I have a MySpace page. My friends are Bob Mould, Ani Difranco, Jason Narducy, and Scott Walker (yes, that Scott Walker) along with dozens of others I have not met or talked to - even electronically. To be fair, I have once talked to Bob Mould.

The technology has not made making friends or relationships easier; it has instead devalued those terms through them being used more commonly. Doesn’t shaking hands and looking someone in the eye mean more than clicking a button? Shouldn’t it? (Didn’t we learn anything from Marty?)

The ability to broadcast every thought for all to hear has lead people to believe they ought to broadcast every thought for all to hear. The internet as the repository of all human knowledge has made me see that although there are certainly some highpoints, the repository of all human knowledge is not that impressive (at least based on what I observe my students reading in my class). Ok, that one was hyperbole for effect.

I think about the repository of human knowledge and how much of that student’s have had access to. How impressive must it have been in the third century to walk into the Library of Alexandria? Even into my early twenties, I remember how impressed I was with the idea that the Library of Congress had a copy of every, EVERY publication copyrighted in the US and always wanted to visit to see that wealth. I remember researching for debate in the early 1980’s and how much information I could access at the library at USD; in a few hours, I could get material that would take me a week to read. In college, I remember being told about some of the physics going on in different research facilities, but not really knowing specifics on what they were doing or how it was going for them or the conclusions they were making and abandoning. The teacher was once the sole repository of knowledge for the students. Next a few resource books are added. A library is added. Audio and video are added. The good teachers integrate those additions; lessons include materials from outside sources; lessons include listening to a speech from President Roosevelt declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor; lessons include watching a documentary on multiple-personality disorder; lessons include watching Finding Forrester after reading Native Son to explore Richard Wright’s premise that there is a Bigger Thomas in every Black man. Now I have most all literature, most all audio recordings, most all video available to use in class. I can show my class pretty well anything to make a point. I can bring the world and its recorded history to my class should I choose to. An integrationist mentions a Taylor Mali poem and I show Mali performing it to my class because I like how he manipulates language for effect the way ee cummings did (who we just happen to be reading in class that day). I think as teachers we like to show what we mean – technology lets us do that.

Technology has allowed me to fill the gaps I have in my knowledge. I can look up facts I need before (or while) I captivate my students in yet another of my enthralling lectures, or I can skip the lecture all together and have them read the information themselves from another source and use the class time to discuss/reflect/process that information. We are too quick to condemn lecture; to listen to the educational gurus now, teacher ought to apologize for the disservice of giving information to their students; “sage on the stage” is an insult. As teachers, we are experts; as teachers, we do know more than our students know; as teachers, we do understand more than our students understand; as teachers, we do not have to apologize for passing on that knowledge and understanding directly. We are too quick to accept that a teacher does not need to be strong in content knowledge to teach effectively.

I believe in drill and practice as a part of teaching. I not only have the ability to use worksheets but also now have new technology to supplement those worksheets to create a more interactive drill and practice.

I believe in class discussion as part of teaching. When students do not contribute EVER to discussion, I should be making them participate – be that through boosting their confidence or calming the loud boys so their voice can be heard. Some have had success here with technology. With or without the technology, to goal is to have voices heard (not to create more noise).

The laptop specifically has allowed me do have alternatives for assignments in class. We used to do a straightforward yet simplistic character worksheet for The Great Gatsby to understand the main characters. Now students produce a movie where they combine multi-media content with excerpts form the novel to show characterization and create tone for each character.

I believe in students working together in groups for projects. I still have projects where three for four students will be huddled around a three foot by eight-foot piece of paper, drawing, writing, putting information together in a new way. Sometimes they are huddled around a laptop; I am not sure one is better – just different.

Start a charter school. Give every student a laptop with full 24/7 access to the internet. Then add no teachers. Let the students learn what and when they want to. Of course, give them each a copy of the state standards – that’s key to educational excellence. Let that simmer for four years and what would you end up with? The computer is not the crucial component in learning.

Technology clearly is a valuable component of a class because it supplements my methods.

What I continue to struggle with is how to get students to see that the default of the laptop is information/learning, not games/entertainment. I have had some of the brightest junior students in class and year after year, when they have a “free” moment or have “finished” an assignment, their first inclination is to use the computer to play – not even e-mail, where you could make an argument for purpose, I mean flash player games: N. These are the kids who are supposed to know better. These are the kids who are supposed to appreciate what they have access to and ought to be thrilled at a chance for self-directed exploration on topics of interest to them. Instead, times is used to memorize the nearly endless repetition of up/down/left/right/space bar combinations to complete a level; then memorize the sequence for the next level. They feel justified: they are “done” with the assignment. When I asked my Accelerated class to research the causes of the Great Depression and how people were affected by the new economic factors in the US, arguable the brightest Junior from last year after 13 minutes was “done” and so had moved on to N. Where did a sixteen-year-old young woman get the idea that thirteen minutes of skimming Wikipedia (not a jab at Wikipedia) brought her to a full understanding of the economic conditions of the Great Depression, its causes and the effect it had on people? That is the failure of the one-to-one initiative: it did not change the educational mindset. It has not yet brought students (and teachers) to the realization that you are NEVER “finished.” It has not brought us to the mindset that learning is better than N (or Halo, or Tetris…).

Furthermore, technology is the student’s access to information outside of class. The availability for enrichment is now without bounds. How much is being utilized by our students? Are they dashing home after school, giddy with the anticipation of finding out more about life of Ernest Hemingway and finding more of his works to read? Has giving them the access given them the will? That is where I fault us. We knew the will did not exist (in most), so how have we fostered that will to learn? Have we created “life-long learners,” or at best used laptops to create homework completers? We gave them the bottle and just expected them to rub it until the genii appeared.

Television is a medium that has incredible potential for education. I dare say that many of our students learned basic reading and math skills from Sesame Street. I still know the Preamble of the Constitution and the parts of speech because of School House Rock. That is not to diffuse a damnation of the time students spend watching TV because we know that not all TV watching is educational; I would say the vast majority of time spend watching TV is not educational. Giving each student a TV is not an answer to making him or her smarter (although it would have that potential in theory and if correctly applied). We expected the laptop to be different knowing the TV paradigm was in place?

Bad teaching is not a defacto fault of technology. Both given and absent any technology, there can be good or bad teaching going on. As foolish as the expectation that we can have brighter students by simply putting laptops in their hands is the thinking that we can make better teachers by the presence of those same laptops.

That teachers are not reaching the students is a shortcoming of the teachers. That this happens and that it continues is a shortcoming of the administration. Principals and higher administration ought to be taking time to guide teachers to a better understanding of better teaching practices – not just en mass propagation of the newest educational bandwagon, but a truthful look at individual teachers and teaching methods and effectiveness THEN looking to improvement.

As someone whose parents chose to put a computer in our home before a remote-controlled television or a VCR (do people still know what this gadget is?), I learned many, many valuable lessons on our 1985 Tandy computer. I’m certain the laptop road is riddled with technological bumps, but can’t those moments too, be learning tools? Whether its patience in an otherwise “instant response” world, or its the finer points of how something like WebCT operates, aren’t students better off having those experiences than not having the opportunity to be exposed to them at all?

As for social networking, one of the tv news stations in Rapid City this week is covering many aspects of the internet, including social networking. For me personally, its fun to see and hear what old friends are doing, but I’m not as in to it as others are. Seems like I do enough work on a computer during the day that I don’t have much enthusiasm to spend every evening– Yet something pulled me to checking your facebook page, and subsequent link to your blog!

In any case, I hope all is well, and I also hope folks appreciate how lucky they are to be exposed to the laptops and all of the experiences that go with it. I know plenty of kids in South Dakota who don’t have the same opportunities!

I don’t know why there is a fear of laptops but it is there. I recently went to Minnetonka to observe a school that is very technology oriented. When I talked with teachers and administrators about there school and they asked what technology we had they were taken back that we had laptops for every student. You should have seen there eyes when I explained that there are teachers that are against the 1 to 1 initiative. They could not comprehend how a teacher would not want computers for each student. So I thought about why teachers don’t want to have computers.

Here is what I thought of
• Time
o Yes it does take time to use computers, but how much time do they save by instant access to information and not moving down to the computer labs when you need computers.
• Classroom Management
o This is a big problem with the computers and one I struggled with in the first part of the year. Then I found out this amazing thing it was spectacular when I figured this out. It is my classroom, I could control when the students are on the computers, I can control what programs they are in with a program called synchroneyes. What was most incredible was when I asked them to close their computers they did. The problem with classroom management is that it is difficult and requires different techniques to manage the students and remember that the teacher is in control.
• Games and information
o The answer to this question is a bit harder and I won’t claim to have all of the answers but when the majority of our students have computers and internet access at home and I would be will to be that most of the students have some sort of gaming counsel as well. These problems run much deeper than the 1 to 1 program but it is something that we have to work on and why we have programs like lightspeed and synchroneyes. This is one of the things that we as educators need to help with and I also wonder where the parents fall into this issue.
o I also feel like since this is a problem that he have responsibility to fix the issue because we are educators and we need to educate the students.
• Cost
o Computers are a major investment and not all of the cost of the computers goes into hardware some of it goes into software and insurance on the computers. I also feel however the state gets money for programs is a good thing. I knew the pay when I choice this field and it is not good, but teacher pay is a separate issue and as a teacher I feel the most important thing is what is best for the student and computers are what is best for our students.

So to answer why 1 to 1 because it is what is best for the students.

Yes we have things to learn. And no the system is not perfect yet. But the 1 to 1 is what you make of it and just like we tell our students you have a choice to make will you move forward embrace a program that literally puts the world at you and your students finger tips or go back to the way teachers have taught since before the car, the computer, or the internet.

No doubt the use of computers and laptops is essential and has become infused in virtually every part of society.

Some staff members wanted a cart of computers in every classroom at the beginning of this project. Their concerns and suggestions were ignored. I just walked through the lunchroom this morning and observed 18 computers. I observed 12 games being played, 5 in email and one student using their computer for academic purpose. I don’t like the culture that is being set at the school byt the laptops.

Students need to have fun, but the atmosphere of the school should be one of learning. How is Kung-Fu Jesus beating up an angel an appropriate academic setting.

I believe that the following could be achieved without laptops 24/7:
• Spend more time involved in collaborative work
• Participate more in project-based learning
• Produce writing of higher quality and greater length
• Gain increased access to information
• Improve research analysis skills
• Direct their own learning
• Readily engage in problem solving and critical thinking
• Consistently show deeper and more flexible uses of technology

We seem to have experienced every problem that the Liverpool has experienced.

I am very concerned with the achievment gap that laptops have contributed rather than solved. Most students handle the laptops fine, but many of lowest performing students don’t have the maturtiy to handle all of the distractions by the laptop.

Sorry to sound negative but I am very displeased with the adminstration of the laptops for some very fundamental reasons.
1. Why do students need to check their email every 90 minutes? Why are we giving up class time to check their email unless it is part of the class?
2. Why do students get their laptops 3 weeks before school starts? They develop bad habits before they even walk through our classroom door. They shouldn’t get their computers until they have been drilled about the appropriate and educational purposes of the laptop.
3. Why isn’t their background pasted with “Property of Watertown School District.” Some students have the view that the computer is their property not that this is a tool for educational purposes. If one teacher or adminstrator spends time with one student because of an inappropriate background this is one too many.

Now that I have said all of the negatives, I would be the first to object to removing the laptops from the classroom. I have spent too much time developing the course to use the computers to get rid of them.