4-Perceptions as an educator - Various other bits (Posting 2)

Summative course for Masters of  Education Portfolio  

2. How has my learning path shaped by perceptions  as an educator?

I am more aware of the negative aspects of technology in service to power structures in schools and the labour involved for a perceived greater gain in educational outcomes that have only barely evolved to equal in the last 30 years of digital technologies in the classroom.

Technology , and especially educational technology is not neutral, It has many unseen and unquestion educative properties that are discounted ( Selwyn 2000) and within the realms of education Writ Large thereby affecting society much greater than schooling ( English 2000) 

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In my overview of education course I did some  research  to examine  the claims of educational technology to provide superior educational and learning outcomes and why school instructional mandate and budgets are given inappropriate amounts of funding every year.  There is a kind of blindness or psychosis, and Utopian view for technology in education to ameliorate all all teaching, learning and assessment  outcomes. Very few definitive causal relationships have be forthcoming in the research that shows technology to be superior. 

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Paulo Freire says that all real and important knowledge must be relevant to the groups being taught; that they must be active participants in what is ‘best to know ‘, in the creation and consumption of learning materials within their own autonomous institutions. This very democratic means of teaching and learning is being usurped by technology, and specifically open online courses and resources, which by their very nature are decontextualized to meet the broadest audience possible. I would like to examine more fully, the power structures behind the pushing of digital technologies and open resources in the face of such cross-purposes in pedagogy.

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Since the publication date of 2005 a lot of media convergence and social media digital technologies have complicated the easy fix that the authors present. It is curious to me, even after all the research of the efficacies of digital technologies over the last 30 years, why a more balanced approach to assessment is not incorporated. There are many barriers to Teacher and student uptake regarding to using digital technologies for learning. Accessibility to video, audio, and computer tools, even in our always on state-of-being, prevent a lot of learners and teachers from full engagement for creativity or assessment. The time to learn how to use these technologies for assessment or creative endeavours is always a major stumbling block. It has been my experience as an early technology teacher and promoter that students will take easiest road using technology since a lot of what they do online is socializing and entertainment. When the time-consuming and often very difficult mastery of digital tools for learning in introduced, many students (and also teachers) decide it is too much of a time commitment for the return on their investment. I have seen this in the courses in video, audio, web design, desktop publishing that I taught for many years. Most people aren’t that interested in getting proficient enough with a digitally creative or educational assessment tool. The few that are, usually have self-promotion as an ulterior motive or have a proclivity towards technologies, and don’t mind spending the time just for the sake of learning it. This has been me for the last 30 years.

 To further illustrate the point: a few years back at a dinner party a teacher friend as me what digital tools I used in education. I provided the list of the digital technologies that I had been using or learning and teaching and as during my hiatus as a programmer. At the mention of the extensive work I did in Microsoft Excel, the teacher exclaimed, “I’ve always wanted to be really adept with Excel!” I explained how many hours I had spent getting things wrong, reading about macros an automation using Excel in books online. I came up with a conservative estimate of 200 hours for a one-time project for the CEO of McCain International who wanted to so some analysis on the various grades of fries we sold by country and by month and quarter for 3 years. This did not deter the zeal of the teacher who wished to be proficient. So I instructed her to do the same with books and the Internet and inquired as to what the purpose for her need to be excellent in Excel. There was none, save for mastery of a digital tool to impress someone in a unknown future scenario. It told the person she was in love with the idea of digital technologies for learning and teaching as Sir Ken Robinson told when he said he really wanted to be a keyboard player (Robinson, 2009). The keyboardist in Sir Paul McCartney’s band said he was enamored of the ability but not all the time practising and playing endless gigs. The passion wasn’t there or he would have already been following that passion.

            Many teachers are not digital natives nor technology innovators. This is not a criticism. They seek the most efficient and effective way of imparting, instilling and assessing knowledge and thinking given their life experience and educational backgrounds. So when assessment is mandated, it becomes another uncomfortable exercise for which many receive little or no training, either in their post-secondary or professional development learning environments. It becomes merely more administration, taking time away from the passion of teaching and learning. Not all teachers or students want to do things digitally, and as I have said many times before, not every educational problem is a digital nail seeking a digital hammer. Teachers and institutions have not progressed to the point at which questioning educational technologies in any critical manner is allowable. Rejecting or questioning digital assessment that they are unqualified to process from lack of skill, training or experience will not be allowed therefore is not legitimate. Teachers assessments of Visual, Digital, and Media Literacy or 21^st century skills will be one of compliance, often as you mentioned, to the dictated of business needs. The unexamined and unquestioned digital technologies of education will amplify Industrial Revolution 2.0 will make it a certainty in our educational institutions (Rushkoff, 2016). It will be curious to see if the digital natives who become teachers provide the digital tide that floats all ships in the near future. By teachers own self-assessment of skills and abilities it appears the digital nirvana is maybe another 30 years off in the future (Nantais & Cockerline, 2009)

See also the Myth of the Digital Native links for more on this often cited delusional catchphrase:

http://chrisbetcher.com/2009/01/the-myth-of-the-digital-native/

http://thebaffler.com/blog/the-digital-native-a-profitable-myth

http://chronicle.com/article/Confronting-the-Myth-of-the/145949/

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no4/koutropoulos_1211.pdf

References

Nantais, M., & Cockerline, G. (2009). Are all our Teacher Candidates Equally Digital Natives? The MERN Journal: Journal of the Manitoba Educational Research Network, 3, 50-58. Retrieved May 30, 2016, from http://www.mern.ca/journal/Journal-V03.pdf

Robinson, K. (2009). The element: How finding your passion changes everything. Penguin.

Rushkoff, D. (2016). Throwing rocks at the Google bus: How growth became the enemy of prosperity. Penguin Books.