Tomorrow Apple announces a new product, widely expected to be a tablet of some kind, and I’ll confess that I want it already – clearly for all the wrong reasons, because I don’t even know what it does. Since purchasing a 128K Macintosh, the first Apple digital camera, the first laser printer, and a variety of other Steve Jobs inspired gems (yes, including the iPhone), the latent consumer in me tends to fall in love with the shovel while I am supposed to concentrate on digging a ditch. I obtain the newest offering, and within days I cannot imagine life without it. The point is how can the tool make one’s life better, make you a better teacher or a more compassionate person. Agreed. But I seem to keep falling for that new shovel.
When I think about thinking about technology in our school, I am aware of three distinct stages I have moved through. Summary: Etiquette, Engage, Empower.
Of late, I find Clayton Christensen’s work (including Disrupting Class) amongst the most visionary and practical in this field.
I describe my first stage as an awareness of the etiquette, or lack thereof, around how we use technology. The most dramatic example happened three years ago after helping a school principal in Thailand prepare for days for an important meeting of a dozen of his colleagues. Throughout the 90 minute gathering, at least three people were talking loudly on their cell phones, while three others were checking e-mail or listening to voicemail. My friend said nothing, but felt completely rejected by his colleagues – a message I was certain no one wanted to send. Cell phones had swept so quickly into the culture, that a common understanding of what was appropriate did not have time to emerge. Time and time again, I saw cell phones keeping people apart and disrupting communication.
My next stage is an ongoing inquiry around how students and faculty engage with technology. In a world where digital immigrants teach digital natives, adults-in-charge routinely need help simply operating devices from those who grew up in a world of iPods and internet. Teachers and parents can easily feel we are competing, and losing, for attention with any number of digital devices. At the same time, the adults can’t fully understand the social implications to a teenager of being connected 24/7/365. And the following story illustrates the way adults are still understanding the academic implications: recently a teacher began to reprimand a student he found using a cellphone in class, but first asked “what are you doing?” The student explained s/he was researching a question that the teacher had mentioned a moment earlier, and the teacher moved instantly from the possibility of anger to admiration for the student’s ingenuity and motivation. The teacher felt the student had become unengaged, but the truth was exactly the opposite.
For the last few years we have spent considerable time thinking about how to use technology to empower our community. This question is bold, clear, and ultimately packed with exciting questions and answers – exactly like the best teaching and learning. How can we empower our students to ask great questions and follow-up with even better answers using distance learning techniques or Google docs? How can we use social media to empower our alumni and keep them connected to our school? What are the most effective ways to empower parents and faculty to work together on behalf our children?
We have to continually clarify our community’s etiquette around the use of technology. We have to continually engage our students in best practices around the use of technology. And we must continually seek to the distribute the “power” of electronic technology to our community.
I see very exciting developments in our school in these areas, and I look forward to sharing them with you as they evolve. Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing the first iPad in our school.
