2-Perceptions as an educator (Posting 2)

How has my learning path shaped by perceptions  as an educator? Cont'd
In response to the article Mills 2010

It is imperative that prior student knowledge should be accessed before we start applying digital solutions to all their learning outcomes for literacy. Digital and social media are just adjuncts to reading and learning not replacements. Too often we are inundated the messages of digital zealots, who claim to have the solution to all learning, whether it reading, Science-Technology-Engineering-Math (STEM) pedagogies, or one of the many forms of expanded multimodal literacies. As you correctly point out, teachers need to be more critical as to whether the students learning needs are being met by yet another Powerpoint presentation in compliance to digital inclusion their course. Many teachers do not accurately assess student’s abilities (pre-knowledge as per good pedagogy) using digital technologies and thus are defeated before they start.

In my 30 years as an ICT teacher and consultant, I have witnessed many failed educational initiatives using video, web and many other educational integrations of digital technologies. This was partly because of incorrect teacher perception of student skills that were non-existent, or poorly developed. Additionally, access to computers and lack of teacher competence and confidence were limiting factors. A BU study of new teachers attests to the fact that teachers competencies, by their own admission, is at very low levels ( Nantais & Cockerline, 2009), coupled with anxiety to be keeping up with digital technologies many teachers use what is familiar and expedient, as do many students. The critical factor of time, to learn how to use digital tools in order to master them, then to be creative, puts great limitations on regular class inclusion of digital technologies in non-tech courses. In my time as a systems analyst and programmer I learned that in business and IT, project failures and constraints are always followed the principles of the Iron Triangle: Scope (Time X Resources), Cost and Scheduling. The principles apply even if the cost is free digital educational tools and unlimited or free resources. The scope (time) and scheduling elements are what cause many forays into digital literacy. None of the realities of barriers to adopting new modes of literacy are new, but they are under-promoted to both teachers and students, leading many authors to argue there is much more of industrial revolution 2.0 ( Rushkoff, 2009 ), Taylorism, and corporate commercial interests at work  in our educational institutions, than paradigm shifts in literacies (Selywn, 2013).

The fact that the paper was not critical of any aspects of the digital turn in new literacy, which we have been promise for many decades now tends to make me be skeptical of the motives being presented as just more techno-utopianism. I don’t dispute that there is better access and ubiquity to literacy materials in multiple forms, or that is can be transformative. I just would like teachers critical of educational technology similar to Douglas Rushkoff when he used McLuhan’s tetrad of media effects  to examine digital promise. Or Neil Selwyn, who wrote an under-recognized book on this whole subject. What is being lost in this rush to the ‘new literacy’ is just as important as what is purported to be gained. One thing that remains constant is that students need time to read and think deeply so as to be ‘creative rather than consumer’ (Mills, 2010, p. 256). For an article not to take into account some of these aforementioned critical elements in its discourse, is not to provide balance, and panders to the same tech-based, panacea mentality, and the myopia many educators have concerning use of digital technologies in service to education.

Greenblatt, A. (2010, September 24). Impact of the internet on thinking. CQ Researcher, 20, 773-796. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/
Mills, K. A. (2010). A review of the “digital turn” in the new literacy studies. Review of Educational Research, 80(2), 246-271.
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

Selwyn, N. (2013). Distrusting educational technology: Critical questions for changing times.

Routledge.Wolf, M., & Barzillai, M. (2009, March). The Importance of Deep Reading. Educational Leadership Vol 66. No.6, pp32-37. Retrieved May 30, 2016, from https://www.mbaea.org/documents/resources/Educational_Leadership_Article_The__D87FE2BC4E7AD.pdf
Rushkoff, D. (2009). Life Inc.: How the world became a corporation and how to take it back. Random House.