Your humble blogger was quoted in a USA Today piece about last week’s Digital Learning Day to the effect that putting an iPad in every child’s lap is not a magic bullet and that we ought to give at least as much thought to the content we teach with technology as the gadgets themselves.
Over at The Quick and the Ed, Ed Sector’s Bill Tucker says my point that ed tech is not a “magic bullet” is correct but “debating this point gets us nowhere.” Thanks, Bill (sort of) but I disagree. It is very much worth debating. Essential, even. The central narrative around ed reform—accountability, teacher quality, technology, et al.—tacitly assumes that the product of American education (what kids actually learn) is settled and sound, and that gains in student achievement, when they come, will be a function of enhanced delivery: better teachers, smaller schools, improved technology, etc.
Isn’t it pretty to think so?
We’ve said it before: The majority of reform efforts (including the focus on ed tech), whether by choice or indifference, seek the best possible delivery of the worst possible product. And Tucker, a very bright and capable observer, strikes a mildly Panglossian chord when he writes that technology…
“…does provide the opportunity to shift power to educators, offering the possibility for not only more customization by teachers, but also access to a greater array of better materials. And, smaller publishers, including those who offer free content, such as Core Knowledge, may finally have a chance to enter classrooms based on the strength of their content, rather than their distribution and sales teams.
This translates into a belief that money and marketing are no match for the man who builds the best mousetrap. I’d love to be wrong about this and see a kind of reverse Gresham’s Law take hold in schools, with good curriculum driving out the bad. But the conditions are not ripe. We’ve had generation after generation of teachers conditioned to believe that curriculum doesn’t matter at all, a common and misguided belief that knowledge is of secondary importance to skills, and an entire policy apparatus constructed around the idea that reading is a skill and that reading tests tell us something revelatory about teachers. In short, the content of a child’s education–especially in the critical elementary years–and the connection between content and language proficiency remains stubbornly off the agenda. All the iPads in the world cannot fix a fundamentally flawed concept of how to promote language proficiency in children.
Debating this point gets us nowhere? No, ignoring this point gets us nowhere.
I love that Digital Learning Day came on the eve of Groundhog Day, because I feel like I have seen this movie over and over again. Wake me when it’s Digital Curriculum Day. Until then, back to my burrow await the end of educational winter. Oh, that it might be only another six weeks.
Steve Jobs understood something that many others did not. Many thought that design was nothing more than a pretty package – even Bill Gates had the same misconception. Jobs knew that in a well-designed item, every inch was devoted to accomplishing the task for which the device was meant in the most simple and efficient way possible. The prettiest device on the planet was a useless piece of junk if it did not elegantly and effectively perform the task at hand. Hence the curated app store – he didn’t want people to have to sort through piles of trash.
The world is full of poseurs. Unfortunately, there are far too many in our profession who seem to lack the capacity to tell the difference.
Comment by Obi-Wandreas — February 6, 2012 @ 11:40 pm
Thank you for the kind descriptors, Robert. You’ve surely dampened my optimism.
My sense, though, is that disrupting the textbook market at least provides an opening for change. Forget the iPads. Open educational resources and authoring platforms (see, for example, http://cnx.org/aboutus/), along with print on demand, provide a number of opportunities — even without shiny devices.
Definitely not a magic bullet. And, yes, no guarantee that the best will win out. But, unless there’s an alternative secret plan to overcome the bleak landscape you’ve described, I’d take advantage of any and every opportunity for change.
Comment by Bill Tucker — February 7, 2012 @ 7:31 am
Perhaps one day, publishers will be judged by the content of their product as opposed to the sparkle of their bling.
As for technology providing the opportunity to shift power to educators…to…offer the possibility for more customization in learning, given the mindset of teachers nationwide, this simply won’t happen tomorrow. Very disappointing, especially when the capability is available.
Change is indeed a monster.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 7, 2012 @ 9:34 am
@Paul @Bill I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m cynical about this. I do believe that over time, we will in fact see a re-evaluation of the importance of a content-rich education. I get out of bed in the morning to hasten its arrival. But there are two major impediments: decades of anti-academic and anti-intellectual inertia in educational thought; and the love affair with structural reforms that I described and routinely condemn. I tend to think both need to play themselves out and show themselves lacking. Then, in the absence of further tinkering with processes, diligent educators will have nowhere else to turn other than to say, “Hmmm. Maybe what kids learn DOES matter.”
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — February 7, 2012 @ 9:42 am
Content, content, content!! That’s all you people who want students to know something ever talk about!! For goodness’ sake why can’t our students in school just have fun? They can learn things after they graduate, right?
Will Fitzhugh
fitzhugh@tcr.org
http://www.tcr.org
Comment by Will Fitzhugh — February 7, 2012 @ 12:10 pm
“…decades of anti-academic and anti-intellectual inertia in educational thought; and the love affair with structural reforms that I described and routinely condemn.”
Now if that isn’t a prompt for Student of History to enter the discussion, I don’t know what is.
Come on Student. We know you’re out there.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 7, 2012 @ 2:23 pm
Student of History appears to be on assignment. Perhaps THIS PROMPT will be reason enough for even the foolish to argue against an anti-academic and anti-intellectual education:
http://videolicious.tv/2009/06/the-best-of-jaywalking-final-jay-leno-tonight-show/
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 8, 2012 @ 8:13 am
I am on assignment Paul but digital literacy is very much part of the story. Told you I would at least try to read the posts.
I see the digital literacy and media literacy pushes as an intrinsic part of the crony capitalist, let’s give these people a monopoly revenue stream with taxpayer dollars, part of the story.
When you really listen to people like Michael Horn they are quite specific that digital learning is about something more than a different way to deliver content or access print.
I simply do not see the academic value in massively multiplayer online gaming but that is being funded by Gates and nsf under Common Core.
All of this involves the visual but nonthinking part of the human brain. That strikes me as a very dangerous focus for schools.
Back to work. The reality is quite a story.
Comment by StudentofHistory — February 8, 2012 @ 9:23 am
Student,
I’m an advocate of digital learning if the software can track the progress of individual students. It also needs to provide multiple lessons for kids who don’t “get it” the first or second time through the sequence.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 9, 2012 @ 5:50 pm
Paul,
I wouldn’t disagree with that statement but that is not the type of digital learning being pushed.
And there is a great deal of research where the advocates push the fact that the computer keeps the interaction at a superficial level.
Perceptual, not conceptual.
Comment by StudentofHistory — February 10, 2012 @ 8:38 pm