Technology in the classroom

Something struck me in class when we looked at the history of technology in the classroom and in the larger context of society. We heard that when a technology is introduced, there is no shortage of people touting the importance of it. I'm sure Thomas Edison would take back his comments of radio having a 100% improvement on learning in the classroom. A favorite quote of mine...Bill Gates once said 640k computing power should be all we really need!

With hindsight vanquishing the oratory of some of the smartest people involved with technology, we can now perhaps take with a grain of salt some of the future lofty expectations and boasting. Or, we can consider that all of those technologies (printing press, phone, radio, tv, film) were stepping stones contributing to the power of the technology we have today with the Internet, social media and modern computing, leading to the ultimate revolution in communication. All of the previous technologies were person to person or person to mass consumtion in their capability and this created a top-down point of view. Such is the perspectives in most of our modern day classrooms. As Dewey said in The Child and the Curriculum,

"The child is simply the immature being who is to be matured; he is the superficial being who is to be deepened; his is narrow experience which is to be widended. It is his to receive, to accept. His part is fullfilled when he is ductile and docile".

Replace child with citizen or masses and you have an adequate description of the way media has been communicated until now. So-called professionals delivering content to the massess and the massess consuming content. With the tools we have available today, the conversation is no longer top-down. We saw strong evidence of the power of the new communication paradigm playing an important role in electing the first black man to the Presidency of the US. As Clay Sharky said so eloquently in his Ted speach,

"it isn't when the shining new tools show up that their uses start permeating society, it's when everybody is able to take them for granted".

Perhaps when teachers are able to use the "Mindtools" as Jonassen calls them, to the utmost capability to inspire students we will interact with them in ways to interest them more. Maybe if we learn as teachers to communicate more with students in the language of the students of today or as Marc Pensky describes them as "digital natives", we can come together to foster better communication in the classroom and spur more interest in learning.

With the playing field being leveled as like no other time in history and because of the nature of the unique technologies today, we have an opportunity to change the way we communicate and engage our students. If the media landscape can change as quickly as it is, we must as educators, take advantage and change our own landscapes. As Dewey said,

"If the subject-matter of the lessons be such as to have an appropriate place within the expanding consciousness of the child, if it grows out of his own past doings, thinking's, and sufferings, and grows into application in further achievements and receptivities, then no device or trick of method has to be resorted to in order to enlist "interest."

Clay Sharky summizes the global phenomenon occurring with the advent of our new way of communicating best when he concluded,

"the media landscape that we knew, as familiar as it was, as easy conceptually as it was to deal with the idea that professionals broadcast messages to amateurs, is increasingly slipping away. In a world where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap; in a world of media where the former audience are now increasingly full participants; in that world media, the world is less and less about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals...The question we all face now is how can we make best use of the medium, even though it means changing the way we've always done".

I do not think he's boasting.