Jan. 04, 2012 - Issue #846: Year in review

Rise of the machines

The role of computers in the classroom should be reviewed

When The New York Times broke the news that a bunch of Silicon Valley CEOs were sending their kids to Waldorf Schools that prioritized natural-based education over technology, it caused a bit of a stir in North American media.

At the Waldorf school in Edmonton, enrolment queries increased and website traffic doubled after being featured in a subsequent article in the Edmonton Journal, reports Netta Johnson, vice president of the Waldorf Education Society of Edmonton.

Behind the clamour looms a bigger question: why are we so unquestioningly accepting of technology and its influence on children, that this revelation caused such a reaction? In fact, the wholesale adoption of technology without consideration for its use or value is an increasing concern for the Edmonton Public School Board, to the point that it has created a special unit to support technology integration.

Terry Korte works in EPSB's Technology Integration Planning Services (TIPS) unit, helping principals and teachers in individual schools make "thoughtful decisions around technology."
"There's often been this approach of, 'Let's buy the hammer, then start looking for the nails,'" says Korte. "We don't want people just going out and looking at the Future Shop flyer and saying, 'OK, let's do this.'

"Typically where technology makes no difference is when it's put in without much thought, and used for everything,” he continues. "You know, 150 different ways to use the iPad or SMARTboard without any kind of attachment or curricular goals."

As the Alberta government reviews Bill 18, the Education Act, over the next few months, the role of technology is arising as a contentious topic, and that's good, says Alberta's Minister for Education.

"We should continuously examine the role of technology in the classroom ... there should be no taboo topics," argues Minister Lukaszuk. With the review of Bill 18, he says, "It takes a little bit of futurism to predict what the technologies will be, what the economic needs will be, what the shifts will be."

While decisions about purchases are left to the individual boards and schools, provincial policy has a significant influence on board programming. "A couple years ago the government put in a program for all schools to have projectors [such as SMARTboards]," Korte recalls. "But with everything, there's a positive and a negative. The negative might be pulling teachers more to the front of the room to do lecture-style things, when we want to be doing more small groups, collaboration, kids learning from each other."

Again, the emphasis is on critical applications of technology. But sometimes, perhaps, those charged with undertaking that critical examination, like the province, may not be critical enough.

In the mid-1990s, Coke and Pepsi were in an all-out war for children's loyalty. At first the battleground was traditional media, but eventually it entered schools, as the dueling manufacturers began offering new electronic scoreboards to schools in exchange for brand exclusivity.

For tech companies, the door is open even wider. Computers and other devices are accepted as de facto teaching tools, necessary to engage today's high-tech generation and enrich their learning environment. And, with funding priorities stretched thin, policy makers and educators may be willing to consider creative ways of obtaining these tools.

"Where technology can be offered into a classroom by a particular manufacturer of a product, because they want to expose students to their product and it is not in any way offending community values," says Lukaszuk, "by all means those are possibilities."

At the same time, it's well known that regular exposure to a brand or product over time is enough to establish a favourable customer impression. As corporate watchdog CorpWatch puts it, "Ubiquity, especially when it melds into the background of daily life, is perhaps the most powerful tool of corporate power."

As Coke and Pepsi realized, schools presented a captive audience for their products. In some ways, Apple versus PC is just today's version of Coke versus Pepsi. But what might the effect of prolonged early exposure to these tools be?

In researching Last Child in the Woods (2006), author Richard Louv encountered a San Diego fourth-grader who told him, "I like to play indoors better, 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are."

It's a revealing quote. What we often don't consider as society becomes increasingly technology-based are the tradeoffs for childhood development. Among the biggest risks are sacrificing all-important "down time," creative play and a child's connection to places where there aren't electrical outlets.

A lot of attention has been paid to the fact that Waldorf classrooms lack technological gadgetry. However, it's not so much that they are lacking computers but that they are rich in simple, natural objects, food and craft supplies and outdoor programming that fosters creative play. Even the staunchest technology proponents agree there's no substitute for that kind of learning. "There's a place for the pen and the paintbrush," Korte agrees. "I would hate if my kid went to school and all they did was create on some kind of software."

Presently, the range of technology available to students varies widely, says Korte. In some schools, nearly every kid has access to their own device, where others may have just one old bank of donated computers, he says. "If anything, our schools are on the opposite end," Korte says. "Students are not learning enough about how to use modern technology."

That may be true, Johnson acknowledges, but she's concerned about the trends and social influences behind greater technological adoption. "Because you have competition between the local schools ... it does sort of lead to a saturation point."

"To stay financially healthy, the schools will do what it takes to attract the parents, and likewise the parents are assuming that if the schools are adopting the technology it's because there's some research-based evidence."

How these considerations influence the review of Bill 18 has yet to be seen, but on many fronts it would seem the advance of educational technology is a foregone conclusion. "You'll see more and more of what you and I would call technology—and kids would just see as utensils—in the classrooms as time goes on," predicts Lukaszuk. "The legislation has to be such that it is permissive to allow teachers to introduce these learning aids into the classroom."

In turn, that will affect what and how children learn. With the review of Bill 18, now is the time to take a good, hard look at how technology will factor into that experience. Clearly there are some, including those who create the technology, who believe it may be worthwhile to consider alternatives. "To develop our own intelligence, we weren't sitting in front of these devices ... we were having good creative play, real experiences in the world and those were what helped nurture our own intelligence and creativity," says Johnson.

"To learn how to be human you don't need an iPad, you need a human." vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus