Balance, Pedagogy and Technology

Both articles for this week, Teacher Pedagogical Beliefs: The Final Frontier in Our Quest for Techonology Integration? and The Growth of Enterprise Pedagogy: How ICT Policy is Infected by Neo-Liberalism seem to miss the mark by making major assumptions that may, in fact not prove to be true.

Ertmer's examination of teacher's beliefs as being a major stumbling block in adoption of technology as the premier pedagogical tool seems to me to have overtones of the same arrogance as Prensky in declaring that age somehow limits one's ability to leverage technology. That teachers, or anyone else for that matter, possess beliefs which will form the basis of their behavior. Whether in matters great or small, what we believe to be true, we will act upon, especially in order to try to effect changes that coincide with those beliefs. This can be no less true for teachers than for anyone else, only for a teacher, what they believe to be true, they will likely, consciously or unconsciously, attempt to sway their students toward accepting as valid for belief as well.

According to Ertmer, then, if a teacher has a bias against the use of technology, they will not feel inclined to promote its adoption as an aid to their pedagogy. I would argue that this may be a false premise, depending up the individual teacher involved. If what we look toward are anecdotal instances to support suppositions such as these, we can no doubt find them. Indeed, no matter how wonderful or heinous the teacher we might try to describe, in all likelihood we can find at least one or two real life examples to support our case. However, I would challenge Ertmer's vision of a teacher as primarily dealing with students via belief (although it cannot be denied that no matter who or what we are dealing with, we will, indeed, believe something about them) but rather, that most teachers engage their students on a basis of relationship. If we begin from a starting point of belief as a motivator, then everything becomes either an aid and support to our position or an obstacle to be overcome, including our students. If, however, we begin from a point of view of seeing our students as valued persons who are to be engaged, nutured and cared for, then what we will desire for them is the best that we can offer them in the medium of education. That desire, based in our relationship with students, can sometimes lead us out of our comfort zones and call us to stretch in order to serve the student better. It may even be possible that a student could call us in to a mode that requires us to refine or even re-define, our beliefs. If these relationships can be that powerful and what I truly desire is the best for my students because of our relationship as student and teacher, then it is my responsibility to seek out the most efficacious way to help them learn. New thoughts must be explored, new ways of learning attempted, new technologies appropriated, in the pursuit of finding out what it is that best meets the needs of those with whom I am in an educational relationship. Stated simply, if I desire what is truly best for my students, they may call me to grow, change and learn as much as I call them to do so. If this is the case, then how can I ask of them what I am not willing to deliver myself in terms of being open to growth? To see technology and a teacher's hermeneutic of suspicion of technology as being the prime factor places an unflattering motive on people who may, in fact, actually have a better way of teaching something than a more technologically advanced method may offer. If, however, we begin with student and teacher in a valued relationship with one another, then what is ultimately desired for the student is the best experience of learning (a subjective term, I know, but the desire of most teachers I know) that is available.

I have much less disagreement with Brown's article as it seems to take a more moderate stance toward the neutrality of the technology in and of itself and focus on the importance of the human element in education. Brown, however, seems to advocate a slowing down, or even a stopping, of the introduction of technology as a major pedagogical tool. With my previous statements in mind, that technology needs to serve the end of educating the whole person and not become the end in itself, it would seem to me irresponsible to reject technology to the extent that Brown seems to be advocating. The truth is that while technology can become mis-applied and mis-guided (see my Twitter posts for extreme and satirical examples,) to withhold from students the tools that both the business and larger world are assimilating and adopting seems to be preparing them to be passed by in a world that will not wait patiently for them to retroactively adopt an information age skill set. Again, we need to seek a balance between Prenksy's Digital Natives and Brown's adversity toward a rapid adoption of emerging technology. Another area where Brown does have a point, I believe, is that the too rapid adoption can feed in to the voracious desire of the IT industry to sell you the latest technology, whether you need it or not. Moore's Law, that computer speed and memory double every six months (a constant which has held true since it was proposed,) means that an industry has spawned which survives on selling consumers (and so, those who use technology as both tool and business necessity) new computers and equipment, whether they are needed or not, as often as possible. There is always a new, more advanced model available and school districts could very well go broke trying to insure that they have 'the latest technology' each year. A happy medium between performance, applicable usage and cost needs to be struck so that educators have the tools needed to make sure their students have access to the best tools that they need to further their education and yet not be trapped in 'keeping up with the Joneses.'

Ultimately, I believe that both of these need to attempt to examine and account for the human factor in their approaches to integrating technology into education.