using technology in education, one faculty's responses to questions

[Connie Weber]

A tech-friend of mine used the brilliant strategy of asking the faculty he's on to write down their fears regarding technology. As he describes it, he gave people only about a minute, so presumably the responses are rather quick and "gut" level. He collected the responses in a bucket. Then he asked people to say what they're excited about--after he made it clear that everyone would be learning to use technology--and everyone would be expected to move ahead this year (with support).

Here's what people said:


I FEAR…
• That it doesn’t perform as expected
• I feel like a dinosaur in a world of eagles.
• I’m afraid I’ll do something to everything I’m working on and it will disappear, so I’m tentative.
• Losing documents that don’t come up in the FIND button.
• Finding the right tech to match the concept (in a timely fashion, at the appropriate level)
• Time to find and organize for class.
• Not knowing the next step without assistance.
• No time to use in class (frustration)
• The kids will know WAY more than I do.
• Not keeping up with all the “systems” currently in use at the school.
• The technology itself will become the primary focus, rather than simply a tool to make learning easier and more dynamic.
• Not knowing how to do much on the computer beyond emailing and RenWeb.
• Getting stuck in the middle of trying something and not being able to finish.
• Not being able to troubleshoot when the kids run into glitches.
• Concerned that the principles, relationships, processes occasionally get lost in the “glamour” of technology.
• It will stall, stop working.
• Too many wires.
• That it will not operate correctly
• The focus will be on the tech, not the subject.
• Too much time to get all tech-y with it
• It steals soul
• Trying something new
• That I don’t know how to use much of it yet and what is available.
• Can’t figure how to do things.
• Increased demands that take time away from time with the students
• When in a hurry something won’t work
• My ineptitude will be revealed to the kids
• I will start something that then won’t work—I can’t start it again, make it go, use it.
• That training I receive today will be forgotten before I need to use it.
• Privacy protection
• Takes a lot of time
• Remembering my passwords
• Frustrated that printers don’t do what I ask them to.
• That it “won’t work”
• Programs that work best for classroom needs.
• Biggest fear when things don’t work especially when the kids are flying along, it is so deflating.
• Not really afraid of much…time gets in my way and lack of equipment (it is really hard to get the lab)
• Fear nothing
• That the technology won’t work when it is time to teach.
• Kids will forget how to do it without technology (oh and PowerPoint)
• That I will accidentally delete something by pressing the wrong thing.
• Not knowing how to do a task.
• The server goes down.
• No fear
• Looking stupid
• Lack of time to figure it out.
• Not knowing what is planned.
• That everything will be so documented it will bite you later.


I AM MOST EXCITED ABOUT…
• Learning new things and “spicing” up my curriculum
• Voice activated programs for kids that don’t read fluently
• Having “techno-buddies” to scout things for Academic Support systems
• Computer use of students’ creativity in unique ways
• It will make things easier i.e. some things will take less time.
• Learning how much the computer can actually do.
• Saving me lots of time
• Making curriculum coordination possible.
• Podcasting
• Movies
• Connecting with others
• Projectors, document scanners in every classroom
• Students and faculty having access to technology throughout the school—not just “in the labs”
• Total digital immersion—24/7 Flat World Learning
• Would like to have more at finger tips
• Learning how …
• Opening up a whole new world
• Sharing so much more with the kids
• Getting info to the students without paper
• Avoiding it at all costs
• Using the big screen
• Possibilities of new lessons
• Being able to switch between different mediums within seconds of each other for a more vibrant, diverse environment
• The potential of educational social networking
• Ease of report cards
• Enhanced communications everywhere in every way
• Parents Web
• Learning on how to use more in my class
• Learning how to do new things with confidence and applying it to the classroom
• Efficient and professional presentations
• Having a system where parents can easily update their own job.
• Cutting work load by using data already collected.
• Nothing except for looking things up
• Make our communication/job easier
• Makes learning come alive for kids.
• Animations and quick you-tubing
• Smartboards, nings, kids publishing and talking/thinking online
• Technology helping student achievement
• Photos
• Kids are fascinated with technology, I love it, makes things more efficient, we can reach out to others.
• The kids love it, it turns them on.
• Skyping my daughters in faraway places
• Writers workshop
• About the way it captures attention and reinforces what I teach
• My blog
• Color/picture drag the easier writing program for younger kids
• Making routine tasks more exciting and fun

Any thoughts on the lists? Observations? What do these lists reveal and what would you advise the tech person to get going on?

[Ian Carmichael]

The 'I fear' list reveals a stunning number of people who don't use ICT themselves. A large number of the fears wouldn't exist for familiar users of such technology. A long time ago on this ning Nathan, I think it was, made the comment that far too many teachers don't use these tools for their own living and learning, so how can they untilise such tools in the classroom.
I'd love to ask the question "What would you like to do in class that you can't now? And a second is like it - "Can you think of how ICT could help this happen?"
Then, I'd feed these response to the tech person -
First: for the ones who have a picture of what's not happing in their class that ICT can fix - get them kitted out and running. (And link them up their colleagues who have the same frustration but without the ICT answer.)
Second: for the frustrated ones without an ICT idea - what can you suggest for them.
And for the rest (well, you'll be busy enough - hopefully there'll be something of a ripple effect as others suspect that something good is happening through educational purpose linked with ICT opportunity.)

The second thing I learn from the list is how generally bland the 'yippee' statements are - and how un-novel much of it is - it is so much like McCluhan's rearview mirror implementation. (We use the new technology to repeat what we already do.)
But then, perhaps I'm suffering early spring jaundice.

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Ian, thanks for reminding us of that discussion before - in my experience, it is SO TRUE that if people are not using technology for their own personal learning, pleasure, creativity, productivity, then trying to force themselves to use it in the classroom will probably end in disaster.

That's why I gave up doing technology assistance with other teachers; for two years I had a job being a technology liaison with faculty members at my school: yes, it was my full time job for two years. Well, that should have been two years of bliss, but I would call it the most failed two years of my life. It was so predictable: if I started working with someone who had some "idea" for what they wanted to do in the classroom, but were not already using that same technology in their own personal or professional life for some reason, then I could predict failure. Nobody ever proved me wrong either... after two years, my one success story was a faculty member who blogged passionately, but that is just because he had ALWAYS wanted to blog and just needed someone to tell him, "yes, go blog!" - that was literally all I told him, and now he runs this massive, awesome blog on Syria: SyriaComment.com.

So, I have become both completely cynical about it all, but blissful in some kind of easy-going way, too: technology is so easy to acquire and use these days that when people need it, they will get it. No problem at all. I am not going to spend too much time worrying about it.

As for institutional efforts to promote it, I'd love to be proven wrong, but I have zero confidence that it can really work ... I think the barriers in people's hearts and minds about using technology are strangely deep and surprisingly emotional and amazingly resistant to change.

PROVE ME WRONG PEOPLE!!! I would love to be proven wrong about this! :-)

[Skip Zilla]

As one who was principally involved for over three decades in introducing digital information and communications technologies to critical workplaces in federal and state governments and in large corporate and small businesses, I can attest that professionals in those workplaces never once saw changes in the work and business processes which undermined their previous proficiencies and their professional integrities (at least for the time it took to reestablish them) as welcome or wanted. No matter how confidently these good folks posed at the start, being responsible for changing the ways they worked, I was keenly aware of their often unexpressed anxieties and shaken self-regard and was challenged more in helping them outgrow these these naturally human responses, than in developing the technical ICT architectures. It's very clear to me that the adult, professionally-habituated teachers you write about here in this discussion are the same kind of folks, facing the same (very personal) uncertainties, as I've experienced over decades in other work and business contexts. Isn't it great that most youngsters learn the ICT they need to know (mostly from one another informally) to be connected, informed, productive, and popular without all the mental habits and emotional insecurities which complicate our growth, personally and professionally, as adults.

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Skip, reading your comments here made me sad in one sense (I thought you might have the SECRET that would unlock the door since you have so much great experience here!!!)... but the contrast between young and old seems true (for the most part - not as a hard and fast rule, of course) - my slogan for the past couple of years, on the model of "don't trust anybody over 30" (ah, the good old days... from before I was 30!) is now "don't do technology with anybody over 30"...

Which is to say, with my students, the IT stuff goes splendidly - they are maybe hesitant, fearful, etc. but they get over that SO FAST - and then, when they embrace the technology, they REALLY embrace it.

I just haven't seen that real change in any of the professionals I've worked with. I wonder what will happen to this generation when they cross the threshold: will they freeze in their tracks, or will the momentum of technology in their lives keep hurtling them forward even when they are launched on their own career paths? That is something I am curious to find out!

[Ian Carmichael]

There's so much 'cool' to preserve - many people think (and it's so ridiculous). In another context I remember a church trainer once saying he far preferred working with the general congregation rather than the pastors - because, to use his phrase, the pastors hardly ever showed up with their playsuits on!

[Laura Gibbs]

Ha ha, I think I will list PLAYSUITS REQUIRED on my syllabus!
Luckily, students find it much easier to put on their playsuits when they don't actually see me in person.
:-)

[Skip Zilla]

I wonder if the professional workplace of teachers and researchers that a university is isn't underdeveloped ICT-wise when it comes to teaching (and thus underserves student learners), but is better and sometimes greatly developed when it comes to research. I wonder, too, if the hard-core humanities are much less accustomed to rely on ICT advances in either research or teaching than are the hard-core sciences which are linked to better defense department and corporate business ties and funding.

If we were able to release all those wondrous ICT developers presently milking tax-payer dollars on military and certain civilian government contracts (I worked on the development of the U.S. National Airspace System in the 1970s; I know first-hand the bucks that IBM and Raytheon contractors earned[?].), I have no doubt their employment could be redirected into civilian projects--such as energy/environmental innovations, infrastructure development, educational ICT, and others--that could be enabled by special-interest-driven politicians who keep the public distracted enough to channel billions of their tax-dollars into re-invented, large-contractor companies' coffers.

Educators are beggars, aren't they, when it comes to garnering world-class resources?

Sorry, Laura, for stoking your cynicism; but it is discouraging at times how the societal cookie crumbles, and educating our kids is the crumbiest.

[Ian Carmichael]

We'll know we've made progress when the military needs to run a cake stall to buy a bomber!
(Can't quite remember the original quote, but that'll do, that'll do.)

[Ian Carmichael]

The last comment moved me to look up some spending figures - not to get into the US-bashing sphere, but because I was listening to a comedy show on Monday, suggesting that Australia is the 13th highest miltary spender in the world - a staggering per capita sum for a population of 20+ million! (The above site puts Aus as #12).
I wonder what the education expenditure table looks like.

[Ellen Pham]

laura, don't do technology with anybody over 30? But you could probably figure out the right thing for them to start, that they would like. And then, you'd be available if they had another question or they wanted to find out about something new : ). But, they would have to let you get to know them that well, be open so you could "get" it right off the bat, or after thinking about it just a bit. I think most people will love something about the new technology... it has happened in the old people I know. They knew how to send and download photographs before many other people did : ) Grandparents :)))))) And thinking about it Skip, I think they mostly learned from their friends- just like the young people. xox (my very legitimate cover :) )

[Laura Gibbs]

Ellen, as I explained in my post, the fears outweighed everything - the curiosity, the liking, everything. I used to agree with you that everybody would find something to love in the new technology - that's why I took that job and dedicated two years of my life to it, with no meaningful results in the end at all. Nobody has time to throw away like that - so, I'm absolutely glad I quit that job, and there is nothing you could pay me that would make me try it again. I get the results I hoped for, and more, with students - so, yes, I am a technology evangelist, but NOT with university faculty members.

[Ellen Pham]

Yes, Laura, you really tried! It is so surprising to me that it NEVER worked! And I did notice you said as far as institutional efforts to promote it... and also, that "...technology is so easy to acquire and use these days that when people need it, they will get it." I just kept thinking, hey, I'm 50, I can still learn new technology! And examples where really old people : ) did learn to use what they wanted to use!