The Good, the Blog, and the Ugly: Technology Integration and the Classroom

Technology is changing. Technology is changing us. Technology is here to stay.

With technology experts predicting that 2045 marks the date for “a profound and disruptive transformation in human capability . . . [where] . . . nonbiological intelligence created in that year will be one billion times more powerful that all human intelligence today.”(1), who can argue?

Furthermore, access to inexpensive computers, via the One Laptop Per Child initiative, coupled with the ever-penetrating communication infrastructure ready for the propagation of a truly world-wide World Wide Web, may mean that we will be living on a “Flat Earth.” Stand aside Harold Innis Harold Innis , look out Marshall McLuhan Marshall McLuhan , space and time in the global village will never be the same.

But wait. What happened when we switched from the slide rule to the calculator? Or made the transition from quill pens and ink wells to ballpoint pens? Or gained access to inexpensive, mass-produced paper? Or even turned on an overhead projector for the first time? Just because these items seem commonplace now does not mean that they did not represent some sort of technological epoch. Would it be wrong for me to argue that some form of technology has always existed in the classroom and that developments in technology are not new?

Is it really a quantum leap from the overhead projector to the interactive whiteboard and the PowerPoint presentation? I do not think it is especially if the teacher is unable to use the new medium effectively in order to engage the students and enhance the lesson. For example, Mr X teaches from a PowerPoint presentation, using print as well as photos and figures to reach the visual learners. If he just lectures from his presentation, he may as well use an overhead projector. Ms Y, in the next room, is using the overhead. Yet, her students are formed into two teams with each team at the front of the class and on either side of the screen. Each team possesses one fly swatter. The answers to Ms Y’s questions are projected on the screen. The members with the swatter are poised and ready to swat the correct answer to Ms Y’s questions. In my opinion the class playing Swat is more engaged in the learning process.

Sure the Internet is a wealth of knowledge, but the abundance of information could be a detriment to the students. Ms Y instructs her students to research the Internet for information on the life cycle of newts. Her students Google (it is interesting how that has become a verb) life cycle of newts and spend the rest of the class sifting through a potential 700,000 or so sites. Clearly, time could be better spent. Mr X’s students are studying toads. His students also search the Web. Yet Mr X is more specific and asks for information from three sites, one government of Canada site, one site from another grade school, and one site from the United States. For his younger students, Mr X already has three sites chosen for his students and simply provides the URLs, a strategy known as Webquest. The Internet can also be wealth of things children should not see at school, or ever for that matter. Webquests can protect students from visiting unwanted sites.

It would be easy to continue with a shopping list of good and bad examples of technology integration. I have not even mentioned the potential for audio media. But I think I have said enough. However, I would like to conclude by commenting on barriers for technology integration. I think that main barrier for effective integration is the mindset that since technology is there we should use it. I believe this mindset creates a purblind perception of technology in which the understanding of effective teaching is lost. An understanding of how to teach should be established first and then, almost contemporaneously, an understanding of the tools used to teach, in this case technology, should be developed. In this way, the priority is placed on effective teaching teamed, hopefully, with a respect for the potential possibilities for technology integration. How do we overcome this barrier? What I am doing is trying to take full advantage of our Com Tech course. What will you do?