Technology is Not the Answer

EdTech is a resource and a tool, not the focus of the lesson

“When teaching a rapidly changing technology, perspective is more important than content.”

Richard E. Pattis

by Mac Bogert

I had the pleasure to work as a carpenter for some years, under the guidance of a smart—and patient—master carpenter. “Measure twice, cut once” is advice I still apply to my work, even when a saw isn’t involved.

He also offered this jewel: “A tool is no better than the fool”. So, a better tool doesn’t improve results if the person using it hasn’t mastered the application of the new tool.

The internet is a tool for gathering and applying information. We all have access to the same limitless amount of data. Because of this universal access, teaching is less and less about information, more and more about meaning. When I was in school, that was not the case. My best teachers had access to more information than I did. My other teachers did too.

The difference between my best and the rest was a respect for connection. The best teachers focused on meaning and gave us students a paradoxical gift—the opportunity to struggle with understanding. While some teachers emphasized the importance of memorizing dates —1066, 1492, 1776, 1861, 1914, 1964— the best teachers regarded dates as navigation points, jumping off places to engage in a conversation within the context of the information.  

Technology has changed the classroom before, say from chalk and the blackboard to film strips and overhead projectors. These advances, however, didn’t offer as perfect an opportunity to support a transformation of what teaching looks like.  

As Sonny Magana points out in Disruptive Classroom Technologies: A framework for Innovation in Education:

“Educational technologies can be either a disruptive innovation or distractive innovation; the dependent variable seems to be the manner in which the technology is used.”

Simply put, we can either see this disruption as a resource or a threat. A new generation of learners needs a new generation of teaching. Not a new generation of teachers. The technology won’t wait for a new generation of teachers; we need a new frame for how we define ourselves now. Students don’t learn simply from what we teach, but from our perspective—our expectations and assumptions about what learning should be. We can model agility, flexibility, and respect for learning by shifting how we manage our responsibility to lead, a process of challenging our own assumptions about teaching and learning.

As we grapple with using technology to support disruption and learning, let’s consider what Roger von Oech points out in A Whack on the Side of the Head.

A runner who loves to explore, Roger was checking out his new neighborhood some years back and came upon a friendly pooch named Aslan. He got in the habit of running by Aslan’s yard every day, stopping for a visit before finishing his run. One day, disappointed at not seeing his four-legged friend, he knocked on the door and was saddened to hear that Aslan had died during the night. The next day (and on succeeding days), he found himself running by Aslan’s yard even though the reason for doing it was no longer there.

He calls this the Aslan Phenomenon—learned behaviors that generate habits (of thinking as well as of doing) at a time and place when they make sense. Things change, but we keep operating within the same habits even though the reason for them is gone.

As a lifelong teacher, I’ve run into my own Aslan Phenomena more times than I can count. Sitting students in rows. Making sure they understand class objectives. Seeing myself as the resident expert. Asking the pro forma “Are there any questions?” rather than “I want two really good questions right now.” Following lesson plans, no matter what. The list goes on. And I try to help my adult clients do the same thing in their organizations, large and small, where Aslan Phenomena thrive.

Those of us responsible for learning can be skeptical of any assumptions or practices that happen in school even though the reason for them is gone. What are the “leftovers” in our assumptions about teaching that inhibit realizing the full potential of the technological toboggan ride? How can we change our thinking to take advantage of the energy of new technology and a new kind of student?

“The first rule of the jungle is eat or be eaten. The first rule of our role in any organization is frame or be framed”

Anonymous

Three ideas power a new way of framing our responsibility, a new approach that can take advantage of rapidly evolving technology.

First, we can let go of the idea that we control what others learn. Each of us learns uniquely. Understanding is and always has been individual. We can influence what people memorize by rewarding them for parroting information. And information can be a powerful baseline for comprehension, but it’s not the same as understanding. We encourage others to gain insight when we serve as a resource rather than as a director.

Technology provides us the perfect platform to serve as navigators, consultants rather than directors. We don’t need uniform results (a leftover from the industrial approach to schooling); we do need uniform access. That includes a vital role for teachers who act as mentors and coaches in a community of learning that explores possibilities, some congruent, some divergent. Answers rather than the answer.

Second, we can welcome what we don’t know. Instead of being breathing encyclopedias, we acknowledge that learning is continuous, for everyone. Our insight grows through relationships between what we already understand and what we don’t. Wide-eyed and pleasantly surprised provides the habitat for life-long learning. Not just for students, but for all of us. Instead of “teaching” them, we can become trusted partners in learning, our experience a layer that enrichers their understanding.

We’ve all had the experience of being startled by a child’s mercurial adaption to technology. We can be comfortable with our role not because of what we know but because of our devotion to meaning.

Third, we can accept learning as dynamic. People learn through leaps of insight which are available only when we let go of information as the goal of learning. The platform we each carry, our pocket computer (we call them cell phones, but they’re computers with a phone app) is constantly morphing.

We need everyone’s input, every day. Though we can help provide a structure to make sense of the barrage of new information, new apps, new programs and a world of accelerating change, that structure will not be comfortably linear, but punctuated by quantum leaps and a necessity to see learning not as an activity but as a way of life, finishing school not as graduation but as commencement, and a life-long hunger for discovery and application.

“Teaching is closer to the kind of science, like engineering, computer science, or architecture, whose imperative it is to make the world a better place, a design science.”

Diana Laurillard

We have seen in the past decade the impact of change on those who are stuck in Aslan Phenomenon thinking. Technology is not the answer to that trap, but a vehicle for a better kind of learning. It’s an answer to the question every teacher asks: “What resources can I find to help us all learn and grow?

For audiophiles, you can listen to a brief podcast on this topic. Simply click on the link below:

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Further Reading

1. Washington Post – Don’t confuse educational technology that helps kids learn — and doesn’t
2. EdSurge – Understanding the Limits of Education Technology and Risk Taking in Schools
3. TrustED – 5 #edtech myths debunked