Musings on the State of IT in Education

[Michelle Davis]

After attending his first NECC conference this year, Ron Canuel, the director general of Canada’s Eastern Township School Board schools (who also happens to be a member of this site) wrote the following essay summing up his version of the state of IT in education. I’ve edited the piece for space, but I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.

July 7, 2008

As the superintendent of a school district that has deployed, since 2003, 1:1 wireless laptop computers to our students from grades 3-11, I have witnessed and experienced a wide range of emotions, thoughts and sensations.

However, in the past few months, a change has occurred inside of me, helping to further understand, in my estimation, some persistent issues that plague the entire technology in education world.

Here are a few of my new beliefs:

1. 21st Century Skills for 21st Century Students: Quite frankly, I believe this to be entirely incorrect. We should say Renaissance Skills for 21st Century Students. In researching the Renaissance and the leading characteristics of this time in our history, I read how the mind and the spirit were merged together, seeking to develop a person, in both a knowledge and spiritual manner. Musicians were mathematicians, artists were engineers, poets were musicians, philosophers were artists, explorers were astronomers and on and on.

This brings us to the 21st century, where the current primary-secondary educational system removed the spirit and focused almost entirely on the acquisition of knowledge and some skills. This is no wonder since it was designed to be a production line, to meet the expectations of the Industrial Age.

How ironic it is that technology is providing the portal to enabling our students and educators to exercise the same type of thinking that the people of the Renaissance did. Digital literacy, media literacy, multi media productions, etc. are, in my belief, the embodiment of allowing students to use their minds, in critical, rationale and analytical ways, while at the same time, allowing for the introduction of the soul.
It is no wonder that some educators are having a difficult time understanding and embracing technology, since it is the gateway to an era that celebrated the development of the person, in a holistic manner, rather than the mere recipient of knowledge.

2. Innovators don’t create systemic change. Mid and late adaptors are the people that need our support and encouragement. In attending conferences in technology, I am struck by the zeal and targeted vision of some of the delegates and of their impatience at how slowly technology in education is happening. As a superintendent of a school district, I can now understand why some of my colleagues are almost fearful of technology, when the IT director or consultant or teacher returns from the conference announcing even newer and more complex developments in the domain. I suspect that to many educators not as immersed in technology, it honestly sounds like bafflegab, hearing about the latest modifications to twitter, wiki, Pluto, verve or whatever.

In our school district, we have showcased the work of our teachers from across our entire system. Yes, there are teachers using blogs, wikis, podcasting, etc in the classroom, but there are also some teachers still getting used to PowerPoint, Garageband and Excel. Some of the delegates who visited our schools, (the same IT folks in your district), leave dismayed. They state that after five years of deployment, not everybody is using Google Earth Version 9, in their cell phones or ipods and communicating, via satellite, with students! I hope you get the point.

What’s wrong with this picture? Well, instead of celebrating “baby steps” for some educators who were very reluctant or hesitant users in the past, (and now, they have accepted to use technology as an important tool in their everyday practice), some of our more proficient educators of technology pooh-pooh the deployment. My answer to them: “Shame on you.” If you keep acting this way, don’t ask yourself why other educators are not using technology. You could be making them feel inadequate and that is wrong.

So, from now on, in any district that uses technology, in any manner or format, please support them, encourage them, help them, share your insights in constructive manners because if you simply return to your district and tell your IT director or superintendent that you witnessed a “disappointing” deployment, you are only setting the entire cause of technology in education backwards. And guess what? Watch how slowly technology will evolve in your district!

3. The most effective models of integration of technology into the classroom revolve around project-based learning and a socio-constructivist approach. After witnessing such a teaching methodology in our system, and in our province, I have come to the conclusion that this approach is very effective but not very efficient. When a teacher has a class of 28 students, using an individualized instructional pattern and technology, the challenge is daunting. Whenever we have talked to our teachers on this matter, a recurrent theme emerges, fatigue.

The traditional practice of teaching relies heavily on the establishment of an economies of scale context. That is, ensuring that as many children as possible learn at the same pace. Any skilled teacher will also state that they try to individualize their instruction, and that is ultimately what distinguishes them from other teachers who simply stay to the larger scale issue and not focus on the individual’s needs.

So, now with the integration of technology into the classroom, we witness a major shift in instructional patterns that remove the economies of scale approach and place an additional important physical demand on our teachers. The key for all of us will be to find support mechanisms that enable and generate higher achievement results, while at the same time, not over-extending our teachers.

I believe that the three elements identified can assist all of us in furthering our understanding of the “human” components of a successful integration of technology into the classroom. Avoiding or ignoring these components will only continue to aggravate our quest to providing children in the world with the best possible opportunities to succeed.

[Peter Robertson]

Thanks for sharing this excellent piece - I entirely agree with the first point, and have only small caveats for points 2 & 3:
2. Innovators don’t create systemic change -- This is true, but their impatience, when it doesn't abate, should be a sign that something more than evolution is afoot. What "baby steps" teachers and schools and districts have taken ARE praise-worthy. But all of us who believe in the social importance of the "common school" need to worry about the waves of change articulated in the book Disrupting Class -- one either rides waves or is swamped by them. What might "riding the waves" look like? That brings me to the third excellent point:

3. The most effective models of integration of technology into the classroom revolve around project-based learning and a socio-constructivist approach - Ron Canuel goes on to note that this undermines the "economies of scale" inherent in traditional education. I see the promise of technology in education as presenting new "economies of scale:" Instructional resources teachers can use to speed and improve the quality of their planning instead of reinventing the wheel, and automated tutoring technologies that can take on an ever-greater share of standard teaching (the easy stuff should already be done - is ANYONE still "teaching" keyboarding?). These time-saving uses of technology should free teachers to spend more of their planning and instructional time on "project-based learning and a socio-constructivist approach."

Getting there involves more effort early on in helping students find intrinsic reward in learning (and de-emphasizing extrinsic reward) so they can be more self-directed, making policy and law more flexible with respect to adult supervision (why does a fully-licensed teacher have to be the adult in charge of every workspace in which students are "learning?"), and giving teachers (AND parents AND students) the tools and training to keep track of the learning students are doing on their own, so they begin to accept evidence of that learning from other places and use it to design the best project-based learning and socio-constructivist opportunities. I'm afraid if we don't figure this out, parents and taxpayers who contribute most to the schools will increasingly use the new tools to get education "done" without the "common school," weaking public support for that school, further widening the gap between the haves and have nots, and inadvertently short-changing their own kids to boot.