Technology is amazing. My son, who shall remain nameless until I forget that he is supposed to remain nameless, is fascinated by Egypt. He is currently reading a series of books called the Kane Chronicles (I think) which centers around a few kids (Calvin and Sadie?) who are descended from pharaohs (I think) who battle the old Egyptian gods (maybe?) in order to save the world. The abundance of Egyptian references in the books has made him curious about that part of history and now he is always asking me questions I can't answer.
"Siri," he says after grabbing my iPhone. "Show me a picture of Anubis because my dad has no idea what he is talking about." I may or may not have deserved that little dig, but due to the fact that in the previous 5 minutes I had told him Anubis was part shark and part octopus, and that there was a movie based on the legend of when Anubis ate a helicopter while it was flying over the ocean, I probably did. I like to keep my kids on their toes.
Anyway, Siri completed the search and came back with pictures and information about Anubis which immediately called into question my version of things. So now my kid doesn’t trust me anymore. Not that he should, what with all the stuff I make up, but it still hurts.
The point I am trying to make is that this child of mine, who until 2 years ago still occasionally put his underpants on backwards, is now able to lecture me about Egyptian gods. And I am totally OK with that. It makes life more interesting, certainly, but it also means that he is becoming well prepared for this time in which information is always at our fingertips. He knows he doesn’t have to believe everything he hears because he can always check for himself.
Technology makes this sort of thing - the quick, real-time research to find something out - significantly easier than it used to be. This is the sort of world in which our kids and our students are growing up. The age of memorizing the periodic table or the steps in the Calvin Cycle is over because, as the old iPhone ads used to say, there is an app for that. When you pull out the tiny rectangle from your pocket that is typically always connected to the internet, you have no excuse for not knowing the atomic mass of Xenon or when Lincoln was president.
This is a frightening time for some teachers because it means the old way of doing things is on its
way out, even before we really have a new way of doing things. Teachers are no longer the ones who dispense knowledge to help fill the little sponges that sit in their desks. Technology, like cell phones and laptops in the classroom, present a significant adaptive challenge because they change the rules of the game. Those sponges don’t need us to fill them with facts anymore because they have access to the collective knowledge of the entire human race.
What makes things a bit more interesting is that many schools are embracing this new paradigm and are issuing laptops to each and every student. No longer are the students stuck using a 3G network to correct their teachers, they can now do it using the school’s WiFi network. My school has been running a Chromebook pilot program (full implementation in 2014-2015 school year) and I have been lucky enough to be a part of it. In the past year I have used the Chromebooks in my classes and there have been a few times when they have been a bit of a nuisance. The vast majority of the time, however, I have found them to be a valuable tool in teaching my students.
What is a teacher to do when the kids can access all of the facts without us? Is technology in the classroom something to be worried about or embraced? In this series of posts I’ll give my opinions on these and other questions, as well as offer (hopefully) helpful suggestions as to how you can use the little machines in your classroom.
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to share them.
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