or Power Up?
Alan November
Have you ever been surprised when you have watched a young child pick up a friend’s cell phone and intuitively use all of its functions? YouTube is fi lled with videos of adorable 2-year-olds using many of the features of an iPhone. You can watch the children gleefully zip their little fi ngers across the touch screen to take pictures, send e-mail, watch videos, and make calls. These images will either generate warm, fuzzy feelings or conjure up scary thoughts. You may even believe that these devices have no place in our classrooms.
The need to maintain control of the traditional classroom has led many school districts to ban a wide range of powerful tools that could be used for learning. It is not unusual to have cell phones, iPods, blog- ging sites, wikis, and free global communication tools such as Skype for- bidden within a school. Either the list of forbidden resources will grow as new, powerful, easy-to-use tools are invented, or it will disappear as we learn to co-opt these devices for learning.
Rethinking Control in Our Classrooms
This is the fi rst time in history when many children are learning to use powerful tools outside the range of adult supervision. What concerns many of us is that our worst fear of students abusing these tools has a much higher chance of happening without teachers and parents provid- ing appropriate role models. Eventually we must realize that it does not make sense to simply ban all of the exciting technologies children want to use from their learning experiences in school. Not realizing this will only expand the disconnect that many students currently feel as they enter our classrooms. Of course, the problem is that these tools can be very disruptive to the traditional management of a classroom. Teachers have told me that they fear losing control of their classes if their students are allowed to bring these devices to school, or if the network allowed access to Facebook and MySpace.
I think these teachers are right. These are disruptive technologies that will not work well in the current culture of industrialized classrooms.
What if we were to transform the culture of teaching and learning to adapt to the power of these tools? After all, our children are growing up at a time when they have instant access to the Web for information and global communication in their back pocket. And it is nearly free.
What many educators fi nd objectionable is the content that students can encounter when using these devices. Reports in the media warn us about online predators, identity theft, cyberbullying, and more. Pornog- raphy and hate messages can be found with only a few mouse clicks.
This isn’t the fi rst time that these issues have come to the forefront.
For years there has been ongoing debate over content delivered through television, books, movies, and magazines. Regulations have been devel- oped over time to help parents and teachers deal with content delivered in these formats. We have become so comfortable with these regulations that we no longer worry about them as much. We put ratings on televi- sion shows that tell parents that the content might be inappropriate.
We put age restrictions on movies to keep kids out of theaters or on magazines to prevent them from being sold to minors. We have learned how to deal with these media. But what about the Internet? There are no
widespread safety regulations. Many students are carrying digital devices right now that have unfettered access to just about anything—both good and bad. It should be no surprise that when children are not taught the social responsibility of using powerful tools, there will be abuse and distraction.
New Roles for Developing Empowered Learners
Shouldn’t we be providing role models for our students about how to harness the power of information and global communication? What if we could tap our students’ interest in these digital tools to design more rigorous and motivating assignments?
Before the Industrial Revolution and the invention of powerful machines such as the tractor and the combine, children were responsible for performing meaningful jobs that were vital to each family’s success.
Depending on their age, children would care for animals, repair farm equipment, prepare food to sell at local markets, and more. Children were essential to the very survival of the family and the farm. At the same time, these jobs taught children the value of hard work, leading them to become more productive citizens within their communities as adults.
As mechanized tools and other technologies developed, our commu- nities no longer needed young children to work. Although technology freed children to leave the farm and go to school, there was a loss of real work and contributions to the community by children.
Across the country, pioneering teachers are providing students with new roles that have students making contributions to their learning communities. We have powerful, easy-to-use tools such as screencasting and podcasting that give students opportunities to contribute content to the class. At the same time, we can also provide them with rigorous and more motivating assignments that better prepare them to become more productive in our new global economy. It’s an exciting time.