Beware the Technology Panacea
Is there a school district left out there who has not wrestled with how to get more technology in the classroom? Is there any one out there not trying to figure out how to achieve 1:1, student:device ratios? No? That’s because technology is becoming v more and more viewed as the panacea for our education woes. This is a simplistic understanding of education being touted by autodidacts like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. They know we are all enthralled with the shiny smart devices and can be easily swayed into thinking these devices are the answer to our prayers. But can technology really revolutionize education?
Here are some of the many ways technology could help the classroom.
- The Flipped Classroom – where students watch recorded lessons on their own time and use classroom time to get individual instruction on portions of the lesson they did not understand. (This concept is being tried in the Normandy school district. It is most often used in post secondary education where the students have more personal commitment to the education process and have demonstrated the ability to teach themselves. Whether this will work in academically struggling districts like Normandy, whose students received numerous detentions in Francis Howell for failure to do their homework, is unlikely. But Normandy has become another state experiment in education, so good luck with that.)
- Master Teachers – an element of the flipped classroom, these subject experts could reach thousands of students at once in MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). Benefits include:
- Provide thousands of students access to engaging lecturers
- Lower district costs by only hiring classroom facilitators, not advanced degreed content experts
- Provide uniform education experience (but not outcome) to many students
- What will be missing is that key element of relationship that is so essential to most kids in order to learn. Annie Murphy Paul wrote in Slate, “Most people are not autodidacts. In order to learn effectively, they need guidance provided by teachers. They need support provided by peers. And they need structure provided by institutions. Amid all the Beware the Technology Panacea | Missouri Education Watchdog: