In order to understand my view on educational technology, you first have to understand my own journey.  My employment history has shaped the way I think about this industry and how frequently, I think, technology is misused in the classroom.

After student teaching in a second grade classroom in semi-urban Denver, Colorado, I took my first teaching job as a 6th grade language arts teacher in rural Jacksonville, Florida.  I was approached by the principal, who asked me to manage the school’s new 32 station computer lab equipped with Josten’s Learning reading, writing, and math curricula.  The language arts curricula that I was to use, consisted of a Basic Skills Inventory, an online test that was supposed to place students into developmentally appropriate reading and writing lessons.  The curriculum had many cartoon type activities that were supposed to engage the students while diagnosing reading issues and helping them learn to read. Obviously it didn’t work.  But it was fun, and many of the students enjoyed going to the computer lab.

I was then hired by Jostens Learning to work with teachers in the Washington, DC schools to use the same curriculum with their students.  It was even less successful in DC, as many things are.  During my three years with Jostens, however, I started to think about why the curriculum was unsuccessful.  The reading curriculum basically replicated a basal reader with comprehension questions interspersed to continually check that the students were actually reading.  The curriculum failed for many of the same reasons basal readers continue to fail.  They do not actually replicate the beauty, intensity, and general joy of actual literature.  Nor do they challenge students to think deeply about the world in which they live, by experiencing life through the characters in the books. Yes, the activities were colorful, employed engaging sounds, and required the students to do stuff, rather than sitting passively. But the truth that we have come to know about literature is that reading is not passive, and doesn’t require “sprucing up” to make it interesting.  In fact, the fewer external distractions the better, when reading a good book.

So, how can technology help students interact with literature differently than just reading a book?  Hold on, I’m getting there.

I took a job as the director of technology for a small, private, K-8, independent school in Northwest DC.  I mention Northwest DC, because this neighborhood does not reflect the majority of the city.  Separated from the rest of the city by Rock Creek park on the east, the power center of K street on the south, the embassies and National Cathedral on the West, and Chevy Chase, Maryland on the North.  This part of town is wealthy, and so are the families that send their children to these private schools.

At this time I was tasked with teaching each grade “computers” and working with faculty to begin to integrate technology into their classrooms and their teaching. This is where the ideas really began to grow.

What does it mean to teach computers?  What does it mean to integrate technology?  Why are these goals that a school would value?  So I taught typing. This seemed like a good place to start.  I also added some content from various cds that came with the apple computers we bought.  This didn’t seem like a good use of these students’ time.  So I started meeting with teachers to find out what they were teaching.  Were there ways that I could supplement, or extend what they were doing in their classrooms that could some how increase student  understanding?  Science and math were good starting points.  Yes, data.  We will plot data.  We will build spreadsheets and look for trends.  Good.  What about the language arts curricula?  Fifth grade is studying Greek Mythology, and writing myths of their own.  Hmmm.  That sounds like fun.  What if we used Hyperstudio (multimedia authoring) to retell the myths.  That’s fun.  How does it help?  Well, they have to really understand the myths to retell them.  How will we know that they actually understand the myths rather than just spitting it back to us.  Well, what if we have them create alternate endings to the myths.  Like a “choose your own adventure” book.  And, what if the alternate endings have to reflect an understanding of other greek myths?  They might bring in other gods or goddesses.  This would really show whether or not they understood the unit.

This was a turning point in my thinking about the use of technology to help students think differently.  The Greek Mythology projects presented to parents and other classes, enjoyed a good deal of public success.  Other teachers came forward with similar project ideas.  This again made me rethink our “computer” teaching.  The next step was to put the computers in the classrooms themselves so that every class could try similar projects.

What followed was a proliferation of “Web-quests”, Power-points and documents. I was very frustrated with, what I assumed was a lack of creativity in the creation of technology enhanced lessons and units.  With that, I decided to leave the administration to go back into the classroom.  For the next ten years I taught fifth grade.  The classroom organization at this school consisted of two, full-time teachers and around 25 students.  We were responsible for teaching language arts, social studies, and basic home-room study skills type lessons.  We started with 13 wireless laptops (a ½ group’s worth) and a Smartboard with projector.

Shortly after moving back into the classroom I was hit with the reality of classroom teaching.  There is a lot to do.  There is a lot to teach.  Teaching with technology was a priority of mine, but it wasn’t a priority of the school’s.  This made things difficult.  I had to concede that my previous frustration towards teachers had been, perhaps, misplaced.  Over the next few years, I was so focused on being a good teacher, that using technology to enhance my teaching took a back seat.  We still used the computers regularly, but not in any truly innovative ways.

I fought against Google Docs when we first headed that way.  I lamented the fact that GD simply couldn’t do some of the really valuable things we could do using FirstClass or even Microsoft Word for that matter.  I didn’t like that we were moving towards Google simply because it was free.  I was afraid of the “Sharing” that Google Docs offered.  I couldn’t see the benefits of the collaborative features that Google offered.  I still lament the loss of some of the things we could do before moving to Google Apps for Education, but I see now how much more valuable collaboration is.

What have I learned as a result of using collaborative tools in the classroom?  I have learned a lot.  First, technology does offer an efficient way of delivering content.  But this is not the reason for using technology, nor is it a means to an end.  Technology is a perfect tool for the synthesis of content and collaboration. Yes, collaboration is the current buzzword in education.  There is a real, practical, thoroughly researched basis for why collaboration is good.  We now know, through brain research, that people construct knowledge through varied experiences and sharing ideas.  The more, the better.  The more experiences, the more perspective.  The more perspective, the greater the understanding.

How does technology facilitate this?  Google taught us how to share.  Using simple applications like Google presentations, instructors can create real-time collaborative classroom activities where students synthesize the content they have been studying.  One example that worked well in my own classroom was during our study of Shakespeare.  While reading Romeo and Juliet, my co-teacher and I wanted the students to explore the concept of power and how that dynamic may have changed during the play.  We created six Google presentations, one for each group of four students.  Each presentation focused on a scene in the play, and contained a slide for a synopsis, a discussion of power; who had power and who wanted power, and how that power dynamic might change in the rest of the play. In class that day, students discussed their presentation in their group.  They shared their ideas and they filled in their presentation.  They took quotes from the play to support their ideas.  They got into heated debates about power.  Did I mention that these were fifth graders?  That’s right, ten and eleven year olds discussing Shakespeare’s message.

(To watch the video, send me an email and I will share it with you)

The point here, is that, yes, technology does enable more efficient distribution of content.  But if we stop there, we are missing the true value of technology enhanced collaboration.  It is that collaboration that will drive the workforce in the coming years.