The first week of EDT 5410 brought the opportunity to read and reflect on two articles:
Reigeluth, C.M. & Joseph, R. (2002). Beyond technology integration: The case for technology transformation. Educational Technology, 42(4), 9-13.
and
Postman, N. (1993). Of Luddites, learning, and life. Technos Quarterly, 2(4).
The first article “Beyond Technology Integration: The Case for Technology Transformation” started out interesting; however Reigeluth and Joseph quickly lost me when they began to examine the reason behind standardization. I couldn’t help to wonder if they were overlooking something. Yes, standardization allows for sorting, “separating the laborers from the managers”, but standardizing also was part of the technology of the time. The Industrial Revolution saw factories standardizing the way they made things, consistent and interchangeable parts, and assembly-line efficiency. One can also draw a relationship that education was standardized for economic reasons. One teacher teaching many students the same thing at the same time is an efficient use of resources. The other thing that struck me about the statement is that it takes a dim view of the value of education for the common laborer. If that was the purpose, one wonders why educate them at all? Send them right into the trades or factories if that’s all their good for. You can fill your management positions with good old nepotism. Also having spent a number of years working in a factory I can personally tell you even the most uneducated people are quickly bored with repetitive tasks. More likely they stay on the job because they have few options.
Nitpicking and initial beef aside, I started to enjoy their proposal of using technology to individualize learning whereby they could eliminate or reduce the need to “hold time constant and allow achievement to vary”, but rather “hold achievement constant at a mastery level, by allowing children as much time as they need to reach those standards.” It seems much like a Star Trek Roddenberry solution, workable yet far-fetched. If you get to know me, you’ll soon find that all roads lead to Star Trek, or in some cases Star Wars, and even sometimes both.
Another suggested method of changing education that struck a chord with me was “Fellow learners can be powerful agents of learning. It is often said that the best way to learn something is to teach it”. I’m not a teacher by trade, so my personal knowledge of teaching methods will be minimal at best when compared to many who will take this class, but this is a concept I can get behind because I’ve seen it work well in personal experience. Many years ago in my youth I took part in this technique as I earned my way towards my Eagle Scout badge. It was the scouts, not the scoutmaster that ran the troop. The scoutmaster wisely set himself up as a guiding presence if needed, but it was up to the scouts to practice leadership and keep the meetings running on an orderly fashion through a chain of command. In the beginnings of the troop, an adult would be needed to teach various skills like: Orientation (map reading and compass skills), Camping (setting up tents, fires etc.), Cooking, and getting one’s Totin’ Chip card (axe & pocket knife safety). After those skills were learned, the scouts were then in charge of teaching the newcomers these skills. Scoutmasters would observe and make corrections as necessary; otherwise you may have serious deviations in information over time akin to playing the Telephone game.
Through the article, the question of ‘who will pay for all of this?’ was lurking in the back of my mind, and addressed in the conclusion. The authors call on policy makers and researchers to get on board, but to go this route, solid proof of the value of this style of learning will be needed. In today’s economy you’d be hard pressed to get anyone to back tech bonds without provable results.
I found the second article “Of Luddites, Learning, and Life” by Neil Postman a somewhat irritating read. Minor factual generalizations like “you cannot buy records anymore” would bug me when in fact you can buy records, both old and new, if you know where to shop and you enjoy the sort of musicians who still put out vinyl. Furthermore, technology puts that ability at your fingertips. But that is beyond the overall point of the article, which seems to be to question the value of getting technology for technology’s sake. I agree with, and practice restraint in purchasing the latest technology. Firstly, asking what the new technology really does to better you life is a good idea. I’ve often believed that Windows operating system releases were thin on innovation and mainly a new coat of paint. I admit there really are some advances, but none so much as to justify the price in upgrading an older computer. Secondly, you get more bang-for-the-buck when purchasing the best of last-years technology. Not only is it cheaper, but for the most part the bugs have been worked out of it.
Postman’s statement “One of the principal functions of school is to teach children how to behave in groups” is interesting if true. Where he reeled me back in was his point about “providing the youth with narratives that help them to find purpose and meaning in learning and life”. I heartily agree with this. A while back I began to study story structure to improve my writing. There is a miniseries worth watching titled "The Power of Myth" that features the work of Joseph Campbell as interviewed by Bill Moyers. Campbell himself talked about the importance of the guidance of narratives. I read Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", but found it challenging. In the book, Campbell's narrative takes it's sweet time ambling down the garden path and seems to stop along the way to admire each and every blossom, not to mention twig, thorn and leaf. The miniseries however is much more direct, Campbell is far more interesting to listen to, and Moyers keeps the show on task with his keen journalistic skills. Campbell’s work compares and contrasts various religions, traditions, and myth stories in a way that is consistent with Carl Jung's "Collective Unconscious". I haven’t read Jung’s work, but through Campbell’s context I gather that we as a species share a universal hard-wired code that evolved with us and helps to direct our lives. Campbell relates that religions, myths, and traditions tap into the Collective Unconscious through metaphors that provide us with a roadmap to life. If you're interested you can get a better definition of the Collective Unconscious here:
It’s well known that a former student of Campbell, George Lukas consulted him while writing Star Wars. Lukas was crafting a modern myth in a film. By studying the archetypes of religion and myth, he was able to create a satisfying narrative and reach a wider audience by tapping the universal stories, experiences, and knowledge that had been learned by individuals with different backgrounds and traditions. What makes this valuable in our context, is that by emulating these techniques, we may be able to create learning narratives that offer a common foundation to a wider array of students. And if you subscribe to Jung, this foundation will also apply to those students who have fewer traditions in the form of religion or myth to draw from. The irony to Postman’s Luddite-ism, is that technology may be the vehicle that makes doing so possible in a cost-effective and individualized manner.
No comments:
Post a Comment