Not So Distant Future

I’m distressed.  I just finished reading this article in the New York Times, which is on the front page of today’s print edition–“Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops.”

I’m trying to imagine a similar headline:  “Seeing no use for them, Google drops laptops”….or “Seeing no purpose for them, NyTimes drops laptops.”

When are we going to get that laptops, internet, and technology are here to stay and becoming more and more part of our lives and our students’ lives?

I was very disappointed in the reporting in this article.  I’m sure some schools have had problems or have chosen to drop them.  But on the other hand, some schools like the Science Leadership Academy have had success with laptops, and have worked through the problems in a meaningful way.  At least the reporter could have bothered to interview some schools with successful programs, and written a headline:  “Laptops have mixed results” or “Laptop successes differ at different schools.”

If you read almost to the end of the article, there is a caveat:

But Mr. Warschauer, who supports laptop programs, said schools like Liverpool might be giving up too soon because it takes time to train teachers to use the new technology and integrate it into their classes. For instance, he pointed to students at a middle school in Yarmouth, Me., who used their laptops to create a Spanish book for poor children in Guatemala and debate Supreme Court cases found online.

“Where laptops and Internet use make a difference are in innovation, creativity, autonomy and independent research,” he said. “If the goal is to get kids up to basic standard levels, then maybe laptops are not the tool. But if the goal is to create the George Lucas and Steve Jobs of the future, then laptops are extremely useful.”

After reading the article, the same thing hits home to me almost every time I read an article about technology implementation.  It isn’t the tools that are at fault, it’s the implementation, training, and support of staff use of the tools.

Schools need to have the teacher buy-in, the support staff or lease-agreement to quickly repair the laptops, and the training on classroom models where laptops are used successfully to make it work well.

But the time is coming when every student WILL have a laptop, PDA or some device with their textbooks on it that is their personal productivity school, so I hope we are preparing for that day–it’s not too far away.

I wish articles like this also talked about the difficulty of desktop computers on campus.   Students who are working on projects at school have hordes of compatibility issues as far as sending files back and forth from their own computers to campus (if they have a computer) and if they don’t have access at home, they are disadvantaged because their fellow students do.   Desktops mean the students have to come to the computer rather than the computer being a readily available tool in the classroom, lunchroom, or library. Schools are limited to the number of projects per period that they can provide computer spaces for, putting restrictions on how many different uses of online sources can happen at any given time, due to the sheer number of available desktops.

Yet we rarely see articles debating the value of desktops in schools.

Another thing that irked me about the article was that it brought up the Ed. Department study of math/reading skill drill software, as though that was proof that technology is ineffective.

I guess we should tell Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, and Dell that technology is an ineffective tool and that they will never make money marketing it because it’s not useful, doesn’t give us tranformative abilities, or provide us access to anything much of use.

Lastly I want to point out that many of the problems mentioned here were the schools’ implementation.  Not to criticize these particular schools, but I noticed remarks about the repair issues(the school should have the infrastructure for that if taking this on), the network bandwidth(again, the school should have provided that if they were embarking on this project), the teacher training or lack thereof, issues about library databases and students not using them(which staff and librarians should be helping with), kids playing in the classroom when they should be working(is this a technology issue or a classroom management issue?), etc.

I know there will be challenges with implementing laptop schools, but I feel educators and districts have the ability and responsibility to consider what those are and plan for them, and adapt.   As institutions, we have to improve our ability to implement projects like this, and learn from them.

We need to get prepared, because the $100 laptop is going to bring this issue into our schools sooner rather than later–soon it won’t be about the money because they will be affordable.

I worry that articles like this make it all too easy for those who are afraid of technology advances to, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” instead of asking what will be best for our students who are graduating into a technology-infused workplace and life.

   I’m reaching the point in the school year where I’ve been driving hard and am getting pretty worn out, as I’m sure a lot of people are, even though I love what I’m doing.

So I was really interested to run across this post at Fischbowl regarding the role of play in education.   Karl Fisch highlights a post by his school district’s CIO, Dan Maas, who beautifully illustrates how the love of something is often born from having time to “play” at it early on.

In our earnestness this time of year, it’s easy to get so focused on goals that we forget the power and value of play for our students or for ourselves, for that matter. 

ForestForTrees, who created the photo from Flickr.com above, reminds us of the definition of play in his photo comments:

“Play consists of…
* “Activities not consciously performed for the sake of any result beyond themselves” (Dewey)
* “Instinctive practice, without serious intent, of activities which will later be essential to life” (Groos).
Source: Definitions of Play and Pretense“

But in his comments on Karl’s post, Barry Bachenheimer notices how often we call things we do in school “work.”

“‘Do your work’, ‘Home work’, ‘Turn in your work.’ Learning is seen as a task and not as an enjoyable activity.”

I think therein lies a real challenge for us with students.  How can we reengage that sense of play?

The other challenge this thread of commentary raises for me is  ”our work” as educators.  Do we ever think of it as play?  Do we still enjoy learning, tinkering around with things, or figuring things out?   Aren’t we more inspired and enthusiastic when we can do that?

It’s a special challenge this time of year to remember to let ourselves play, to slow down and enjoy a moment, to do something for the sheer enjoyment of it, whether at “work” or elsewhere.  But we all need to take time out to “sharpen the saw” as Stephen Covey puts it, and bring the energy we gain from our play back into our classrooms and schools.

I’ve been too tired to post much lately but I noticed when I was reading about play how much it energized me.  Perhaps even the mere notion of play can relax us?  Food for thought….

Wow.   iGoogle.   Karl Fisch hasn’t been far wrong…Check out his 2020 Vision.

Update:  More from the Google blog itself.