Teacher Resistance
An education newsletter recently made its way onto my desk. Inside the first page was an article called, “Personal Electronic Devices (PEDs) In The Classroom.” It wasn’t a long article but I was immediately excited to read it because I am always looking for new and innovative ways to use technology to improve student learning. Moreover, I am well aware that more than 60% of my students carry a cell phone and more than 90% have some kind of PED (MP3 player, PSP, cell phone, etc.) with them at all times. I also recognize that I have yet to really leverage these devices for student learning.
In any case, you can imagine my complete disappointment when I read the clear and deliberate thesis of the article: These devices have no discernible benefit for students in a school environment.
My immediate reaction was one of despondency in knowing that this newsletter could have potentially reached more than 4000 teachers in my district. Many teachers are already intimidated by technology and it worries me to think how an article like this would help to build the wall of technology resistance for many teachers.
I think that it is very shortsighted for the author to say that there is no discernible benefit for these devices. Even a simple Google search for “cell phones in education” provides multiple links to websites that are entirely devoted to how we could leverage PEDs in the classroom. In my own class, I have witnessed numerous occasions where students have:
- used their cell phones with Google SMS to quickly find facts that come up in class lessons (e.g. population of Canada, height of the CN Tower, etc.)
- taken photos of their lab apparatus to include in written reports
- recorded video and audio for group presentations
- called their friend who slept in for an exam
Even these are basic functions and do not include the possibility of “back-channeling” on Twitter during classroom debates or conducting real-time polling (polleverywhere.com) during student presentations via text-messages.
Now, I am not one to embrace every possible technology for classroom use. We must not use technology for the sake of using technology, and I will admit that PEDs can be distracting to students. But, these devices are not going away no matter how much we try to ban them or limit their access! Many technology experts agree that it will not be long before PEDs are the most important source for personal learning in the lives of our students outside the classroom. Our students will continue to become more disconnected from learning in school as they engage in new (and more effective?) methods of learning outside of school.
I would have greatly appreciated the article if the author were to take the position of a “concerned educator” who saw issues arising with PEDs in spite of some of their benefits. An article like that would open the conversation, rather than closing it. Instead, the author has presented what appears to be the last and final word on the issue.
The truest irony for me is that the author is demonstrating the closed-mindedness that I work so hard to help my students avoid by using technology in new and innovative ways! In my class, technology encourages open-mindedness: it starts conversations, and empowers students to make connections with each other and the society in which they live.
I stumbled across a quote a few months ago from Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach in her article, “Letter to my Colleagues” that has since resonated with me:
“Technology will never replace teachers. However teachers who know how to use technology effectively to help their students connect and collaborate together will replace those who do not.”
The world is changing; students are changing; education is changing; so I am changing.
Image Credits:
What’s in my bag? – School
Brandy Shaul
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoologist/277563047/
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