Computers not as ubiquitous as people think pt III

Now I am going to talk about my own experience as an educator, as anecdotal as it may seem. This is part three of a long rant about the misconceptions I feel exist about technology in the classroom.

In an attempt to use online technology to help assess my students and help me free up some more class time for instruction and practice, I set up class accounts with an online service that provided the assessment tools I needed. Every student was given a username and a password and I set them off on their own to log into the website and be assessed.

Suddenly I was inundated with mountains of problems. Some of them were legitimate problems with every type of electronics use that are frustrating, but found with nearly every application of electronics that we use. The vast majority of the problems were user error, specifically, password entry problems. Yes, despite being the digital generation with a technological gleam in their eyes, 63% (I counted) of my students couldn't input their passwords correctly.

That is right, this amazing generation of students who were raised on computers couldn't do a simple assignment because they kept on typing their passwords incorrectly.

Of course, this is supported by the same evidence that I mentioned earlier. The Kaiser Family Foundation mentioned that children spend huge amounts of time online and with their cell phones, but they almost never use it for instructional purposes. Facebook and other social media as well as gaming, chatting and consuming media take most of their time. Only 1/3 of the students researched admitted to using computers or other electronic media to study or to do their homework.

While our students may be adept at Facebook and games, they aren't necessarily great at technology in general.

Richard Clark, in an article titled "Media Will Never Influence Learning" argued that it doesn't truly matter what type of media is involved, as long as the instruction and design behind it was solid. With that in mind, it is best to pick the cheapest and most accessible media available. Sometimes that means the computer, and sometimes it means a textbook. I tend to agree with him. If we are going to use technology, we need to think it through and make sure that it is a smart use of technology, not just a reaction to the media hype surrounding this new "digital generation."

Computers not as ubiquitous as people think pt II

My last blog entry focused on debunking the idea that everybody has a computer and that all students have access to electronics that might help them succeed in schools. Hopefully I showed that concept to be overly idealistic. The use of smart technology in the classroom is a goal that almost everybody could stand behind, and it is an objective that comes with many obstructions and problems. One of those problems is the availability of cheap, effective technology both in the home and in the classroom. Another problem, the one I want to focus on in this blog entry, is that we have a serious misconception about our students' ability to use electronics. For some reason, older folks in our time always think that the younger generation has a greater knowledge about electronics than they do. The thought is that by merely being younger, and having been raised in a culture that used computers, that those children will know how to use computers to a degree that surpasses the older generation. Sometimes we hear ideas and conversations about the next generation being the "digital generation" or how students have a "digital gleam in their eyes."

The fact is, both of those statements are, at least in part, true. One study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that students spend more time on computers than they do on bicycles and that more students know how to open a web page than know how to swim freely. It is an interesting study, you should read it:

Media in the lives of 8 to 18 year olds.

Our students did grow up with computers, and they do spend most of their time using electronics such as cell phones, the internet, and tablets. However, do these facts about our students really indicate that we as educators should modify our instruction to account for more modern technology use?

The point I would like to make is that the answer to this question is a resounding no. There are many issues surrounding instructional design to consider before we throw our efforts and weight fully into the idea that technology is better, and some of them indicate that technology isn't better at all.

One of those issues is that our students really aren't all that adept at technology use. It may seem shocking to some, but it is true. Students, especially if they are younger, have a difficult time typing, have a difficult time troubleshooting problems and don't truly understand the processes that make electronics work. Ask any normal student how to find hidden files on windows, or how to swap out a hard drive or RAM, or how to solve any other tech related problem and you will find that they have absolutely no idea how to do any of that. If we were to ask a normal 25 year old college student how to do the same tasks, odds are that more of them would be able to do it than the students we teach.

Now, of course some students might enjoy the motion of pointing and clicking their way through a test more than they would the idea of writing down an answer, but skills like that are not very important. Given any sort of problem solving task, or research task, adults will unanimously do better than teenagers or children.

It is important to note that some of our students would know how to put a computer together and use Google Scholar in an appropriate way. As with any group, there are exceptions to every rule.

Computers not as ubiquitous as people think.

There is this pervasive idea that technology is everywhere and that somehow, instructors who don't use the best and brightest tech are somehow bad teachers or who aren't doing everything they can to help their students. Every time there is a new invention, or new educational theory, there will be an insurgence of people and professional organizations telling people that they must use the new product. If, as should be predicted, people aren't as interested in the new concepts as they should be, they are labeled as "resistant to change."

I am no Luddite, in fact, I consider myself a very tech savvy teacher. Still, as an educator who does try to keep up on the technological curve and apply it in class, I am constantly confronted with the familiar disappointment with technology that either doesn't work the way it should, or doesn't work at all.

First of all, it may be true that all homes now days have a computer, this does not mean that all people have access to that computer. There are dozens of reasons why students might not have the ability to use a computer whenever I decide to assign them something to do on it. Poorly maintained computers are sometimes the culprit, but so are electronics hogging siblings who won't relinquish control. Sometimes parents have very strict computer rules, or, as I have actually seen before, religious objections to too much computer use.

Of course, there is always the frustrating experience of having that one website completely shut down the exact moment you need it the most.

Cellphones, that incredible computer at all students have living in their pocket, are subject to the same problems many of the times. Those crazy apps and 3G networks stop working all of the time, sometimes for no apparent reason.

Add all of these problems to the one classic problem that is consistent electronics is expensive to maintain.

Now, I can hear you say "Mr. Reflective Educator, this is why you need a plan B. If you have a backup plan, everything works just fine." I would say that this idea is completely true except that now instead of three lessons I need to plan, now I have six lessons. While I am spending so much time keeping up with modern trends in technology, I might not have time to create a plan B.

Sometimes it is just easier to use a textbook, since that is one type if technology that rarely fails.

Possibly the worst part of it all is that in twenty or thirty years, some young, new teacher is going to look down on you for not embracing some new, unforeseen technology that you don't quite understand, but that the new teachers organization endorses. They'll look at you, and all of your years of experience, and call you resistant to change and old fashioned.