Over the past two or three years, the issue of technology in the classroom has become an even bigger issue than ever before. Of course, for decades, there has been an improvement in basic technology that some innovative teachers took to the classroom. My father was an electrical engineer who first cut his teeth on computers in the early 60s working within the Mercury Program, the USA’s first space program. In the mid-70s, Dad changed careers to enter the world of Vocational education. In 1980, Dad, someone in love with the Apple II computer, created the first computer programming class in McMinn County, with myself and my best friend, Chris Bell (whose father also was a computer geek, choosing the TRS-80 as the best style computer).
So, while there have always been innovative teachers bringing technology into the classroom, on the whole, anyone involved with technology was from a small narrow niche of people. We were “the geeks.” As Nerds, we knew the advantage of being able to program using BASIC or FORTRAN, we understood how cool it was to be able to write our English papers with a word processing program, and the fun of having an “always read to play” game partner, all using a computer. While at Auburn, I was one of only a few brothers in my fraternity who owned a computer, all the way through the middle 1980s. None of my professors did anything with technology, except occasionally offer a multiple-choice test that computers graded; still in 1988, I was a Teacher’s Assistant grading multiple-choice tests by hand.
However, something has happened in the last 10 years–everyone has become a nerd. The geeks have inherited the earth. As technologies like wireless connectivity, mini-computers, instant communication and location awareness has taken over, our current generation of students in the college classrooms are natives to this high-tech world. Unlike my days at Auburn in the 80s, when I was one of a very few students who knew something about technology, thus the uninformed professor was just part of the larger crowd of people who didn’t know or didn’t get it, today, the vast majority of students are using technology like breathing.
That brings up the challenge then of the professor trying to determine what do to with this. Last year, I had to talk one of my professors “off the ledge” when she threatened to just ban all computers and phones from her classroom. She was incensed by a student who appeared to constantly be surfing the Net, laughing at the wrong times, and mostly just taking up space in the classroom. While I understood her feelings, banning technology simply won’t work. Worse, she’ll start to look like another peer of mine who recently retired. Though we taught in a high-tech room with computers, projectors and a variety of other gear, he still was using overheads shot onto the wall with an old 1970s projector. You can only imagine the impression that made on students as they wondered why they should sit through his class.
This issue of how do I handle students was perhaps best illustrated back in June. If you are a Harry Potter fan, you know that G. K. Rowling introduced a web portal for Potter stuff. It seems that mostly it was just a place to sell electronic books of the famous tomes, but that didn’t stop her team from having a big announcement of the new portal. Media people of all sorts arrived, eager to hear what fun Potter-goodness could be coming from the author, when they were stunned to hear, with all seriousness, the leads of the tech team tell the media that they couldn’t tell anyone. No blog posts. No Twitter. No secrets leaked. Of course, the story leaked immediately. BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, who of course did what every self-respecting tech journalist would do: live-blogged the event. After he shared enough info to the world, he defended his actions with a tweet that cut right to the heart of the matter: “Sorry–you can’t launch a product for digital generation in front of cameras and journalists–and tell them it’s embargoed.#pottermore.”
Fast Company’s writer on this issue nailed the obvious when he told this story, along with how Nokia also handled their announcement of the new N9 ego smartphone which then led into a surprise announcement tied into Windows Phone 7 smartphone.
“Both of these stories are examples of careless low-tech thinking in a high-tech era. Not the products, we mean, their rollouts. The Pottermore press team really did expect journalists to comply, it now seems. But they didn’t expect the nearly instant leak. In an era when writers carry smartphones and 3G-connected iPads and work on a minute-to-minute schedule, the [Pottermore] team, according to Cellan-Jones, actually asked the assembled media to shut off their devices, those oh-so precious links to the newsroom. Instead of having all their technological ducks in a row, with a simultaneous product launch and press event, achieving the maximum possible impact, Pottermore’s news thus seeped out gently and slightly awkwardly. From Stephen Elop’s [of Nokia] tone and demeanor, it looks like he really did hope people wouldn’t reveal the Sea Ray.”
Later, the Fast Company writer went on to say “If you’re trying to launch a high-tech product nowadays, you have to think high tech yourself when planning the press coverage. You can try some “leaky” PR trickery, but don’t be surprised if it backfires and leaves your company looking slightly silly.” I would change his words a bit, to make it connect better for educators. “If you are trying to connect to students, you have to think high tech yourself when planning the class.” The students, just like the audience for Potter or Nokia, are far too advanced these days to accept something like images shown via overheads on a projector.