In a recent post entitled “The Battle is (or Will be) Lost”, Will Richardson relates a story that Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, told at the Personal Democracy Forum. Disappointed that in weekly meetings his staff had their faces in their computers, he banned computers. The following week, thinking that his staff were all leaning forward in deep engagement, he came to find that they were all using their blackberries under the table. Richardson quoted Schmidt: “This is a battle that we have lost, and I think it’s fine” because it shows just how important these technologies are.
I found this story very interesting for a number of reasons. First, the CEO of Google, a company that has made all kinds of web-based interconnectedness and sharing of information possible, banned computers from meetings, rather than harnessing and capitalizing on the “back-channel” potential.
Second, his use of militarized language expresses more than just an experience of generational gap; he acknowledges that we are standing in the midst of a cultural and technological revolution that has happened, is happening, and will continue to change and shape the ways in which we communicate, explore ideas, and share information.
In this brave new world, what are our expectations for behavior? Should I assume, for example, that a student is not “paying attention” when his face is focused on his laptop? What if he is actually looking up the the floorplan of the Boule in the Athenian agora and instant messaging that link to another student who just made a very interesting comment on the relationship between civic space and citizen participation in the world’s first democracy?
Moreover, what if teachers and leaders were to encourage the using of these tools to foster interaction, independence, initiative, and collaboration within a learning community?
In his post, Will Richardson draws the proverbial line in the sand:
And so there it is. There is really the crux of this. We. Cannot. Win. This battle has been lost, the problem is most parents, and most educators just don’t get it yet. All this banning of cell phones and taking down wikis and filtering out blogs…all of it is our own little Iraq. It’s not working. It’s not going to work…More restrictions, more blocking, more battening down the information hatches is only going to drive it all underground and make the world of our kids less safe. And, it will deny us a chance to help our kids develop and employ the literacies they are going to need to succeed in their future.
I would only add that when we restrict, block, and batten down, we serve only to isolate ourselves. Rather, what we can do is embrace the possibilities by forging a new code of behavioral expectations that supports each contributing member of a community (a staff-meeting; a classroom) bringing her network and all the information and approaches to problem-solving that are expressed within it to the table.
May 25, 2007 at 6:03 pm
That’s quite a resounding statement, and thought-provoking. What used to be “always-on” connections used to refer to the connections themselves, but perhaps it should refer to the people who use them.
May 25, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Good post, instead of viewing it as only a distraction why aren’t teachers viewing it as a possibility to increase learning? Like you said one student could be looking up something and sharing it with another student. As any good teacher knows engaging the material in a deeper way by bring different strands together always improves learning. Small pieces loosely joined comes to mind, eg. using social bookmarking to share and connect. So many possibilities…
May 25, 2007 at 11:44 pm
It’s interesting to me that the first two to respond to this post are students.
I’ve had students who were using laptops during class to check email, post to Facebook, and IM their friends. But I’ve also had students use laptops to bring PDF readings to discussion, look up relevant materials during class, post to the class wiki, and take notes (the most traditional use).
Part of the problem is figuring out how to incorporate a tool that only a few students bring to class. Can we count on those laptops being there if we tweak our classes to include students’ use of them? Should we encourage/require students to bring such items?
Another problem is how to incorporate a technology (wireless) that is only (relatively) recently available in the classrooms themselves. Students have to figure out to use their laptops responsibly, but teachers are deluding themselves if they think the laptops are the real problem.
Our job as teachers is to figure out how to manage a transition toward increased use of laptops, but encourage a use of those laptops that fosters a more powerful learning environment. What would happen if we asked the disengaged laptop-wielding student to look up the answer to a particular question? As your post (and the one from Will Richardson that inspired it) points out, banning these devices isn’t going to fix the issue, it’ll only isolate ourselves (and the academy as a whole) even further from actual life.
November 18, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Добавил в закладки.