After a one week hiatus, the 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons community project is back on track. This week's entry comes from Kate of f(t) (one of many great bloggers featured on my blogroll). She has a very interesting perspective on technology in the classroom. Enjoy!
Hey, New Teachers!
Put. The technology. Down.
No, really. Put it down.
It's not going to teach for you.
It's not going to make the kids get right triangle proportions in a whole new way they never got it before.
It's never going to take the place of a thoughtful, relevant lesson, lovingly developed by you.
Because the technology was made by people. People who never taught Geometry in your town. People who never met your kids.
And other people can not decide FOR you how YOU are going to teach something well.
If you can't already teach something well without technology, technology is just going to make things worse.
Technology is the guy who smokes and rides a motorcycle. It's exciting and sexy. And it's bad for you.
...
OK, if you insist, you can use it.
But it has to be THIS way: "I am planning this lesson, which is going to be awesome. It would be REALLY awesome if X." And the technology does X. Then you can use it.
And not THIS way: "This technology is so COOL! I have to use it SOMEHOW!"
No! Bad. Put it down.
(To clarify, I'm specifically using the word "technology" to mean the snake oil peddled as educational hard/software, of the variety "Have the kids log in and give them a copy of this worksheet!" (and, I dunno, go sit at your desk and drink coffee or something). I don't mean stop using your telephone and ban all calculators. If it is the kind that makes the awesome lesson you lovingly developed go smoother, easier, and less stressfully, ok. (I had to add this part because I wouldn't want my Smart Board to think I was talking bad about it. I love that thing. I'm serious. If it could pay my bills, I'd marry it.))
My name is Kate.
I teach high school students some mathematics in upstate NY.
I have a blog at http://function-of-time.blogspot.com.
Read more about this project here or add the 52 teachers 52 lessons tag to your favorites. Email your entries to teachforeverATgmailDOTcom. Week 6 will be posted next Monday, February 23rd.
5 comments:
Preach it, sister! A thousand Amens!
We're supposed to feel bad for liking chalk?
Bravo!
Jonathan
To some extent. There is a transistion occuring where we have various technologies and we don't really know what to do with them. So a fall back is to teach the same material. I hear you on the 'snake oil' aspects. There's a lot of money being swindled out of schools. But there are a lot of powerful tools (as you admit) that are becoming more and more standard. I'm fairly certain that most teachers don't even use graphing calculators near their full abilities, so they shouldn't try throwing in too many other techs. But in order to bring technology into the classroom we'll need to make some mistakes, some excuses. We'll need to play with it once in a while, see what our students make of it, what direction that take it.
So perhaps a compromise, occasionally try something out, just to see how it goes (like your bouncing ball lesson). But don't risk the whole ship on something new.
Cheers,
Kevin
Kevin,
It's not only about teachers not using tech, but what tech is being pushed by districts. In my experience districts "bet the farm" on several redundant or conflicting programs at the same time, and add new ones each year without reevaluating or removing old ones. It seems they're usually motivated by what other districts are doing and putting up the appearance of using technology effectively.
I just keep thinking back to the frustration I had working with the TI-Navigator system and how in the end, it wasn't providing something that couldn't be replicated in much easier, low-tech ways.
Huge, unwieldy software systems, such as Agile Mind or Accelerated Reader seem to be what districts consider high technology.
Meanwhile, iPods, cell phones and video games are being banned instead of embraced. I'm concerned at how no one seems to be pushing back on this. I had a colleague ask me the other day if I had done any podcasting in the classroom. I thought she was kidding--I've never worked at a school that would even consider this. The kids aren't even allowed to have mp3 players in school! It's extremely frustrating.
I see what you mean. We allow iPods, but cell phones are out and the internet is filtered.
I agree the tech isn't programs, I'd rather see a lot more actual technology learning and a lot less "here is a shiny program."
My apologies for not getting the point.
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