Chill about Tech

The assignment was called "Tech in My Placement." It meant doing a survey of the teaching and learning technology at your placement school. I'm neutral about what I found, neither surprised nor impressed, not disappointed. There are labs. There are carts. There are document projectors. And so on. I could work with what they have. I'd like to think I could work with whatever technology I find in the school where I'll teach. Because I'll have to. It was interesting to do the survey and see what there was. It's almost like Jeff and Rory kinda want to suggest that we do this at the school where we get our first job. Cosmic!

I found it very interesting to read the responses of the two other MACers at Pioneer: my peers Betsy and Branden. Betsy was depressed. Her disaffection, it seems, had a lot to do with her mentor not having a document camera at the start of school. My mentor did not experience this. If she had, things would have been much different, because this is the one piece of technology always in use in her classroom.

Aside from people liking or not liking the level of technological sophistication at their placements, one of the themes I find from reading others' posts about the Tech in My Placement assignment is the notion that resources are often not exploited fully or properly. Broken, missing equipment. Confusion about how things work. Unused equipment and features. Unreachable IT specialists. This is troubling.

The reason is not hard to find, of course. Grants and budget lines go to buying stuff. Impressive, high-tech, expensive stuff. Spend the money you get for technology, and spend it all, or next year they won't give it because, “the school doesn't need it.” It also means stuff that can be bragged about, “Our school has 50 of this, the latest that, plus some of these, and we're the only school in the district to have one of those.” Looks good on the brochure. Impresses parents who are shopping for a school. Kind of like what's happening these days with colleges, “Come to Fleece U, we have a Michelin four-star dining hall and a rock-climbing wall!”

Then maybe sometimes after the stuff is brought into the school there's not enough money for the people to run, fix, explain and help with the technology. People are expensive for districts. Who needs them! We've got gadgets! Cool gadgets. So there is one IT person, or two. I'd bet they are overworked. I'd bet that is an understatement. And not everyone who is good with technology can maintain patience with a techno-phobe like yours truly. But I'd say that people, the right kind of technology people, are as crucial as the stuff itself. People who can not just fix and troubleshoot, who can deliver equipment and keep it working, but who can talk about features. People with either some imagination about how to use stuff, or the qualities of a salesman.

It's our job as teachers to figure out how to use technology as educational tools, of course. And I wouldn't expect this from IT specialists. What would be nice to see however, is PD about using technology, sharing ideas, having a human talk about all the things you can do with this or that. Especially for teachers who did not have the advantage of such a great Teaching with Technology sequence. (Thanks Jeff and Rory).

Because the level and use of technology in a school does not, I think, entirely depend on just the amount and newness of the technology. It depends also on the level of the people who are able to exploit it effectively for maximal pedagogical effect. And not just one or two teachers. The average level and quality of technology use is probably what most matters in school. What makes the biggest difference.