This article caught my attention Sunday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/technology/technology-in-schools-faces-questions-on-value.html
I have done a number of Digital Divide projects since 2000 including the Dignity Project, the Reichert House and currently, the CRTA at Lutheran Social Services of North Florida. Most of my projects have been focused primarily on young people. The Dignity Project served young people in foster care who, having just turned 18, had aged out of the program with no means to afford a computer and not many good job prospects without a basic comfort zone using one. Riechert House focused on at-risk middle school children who did not have computers in their homes – we created a lab where student mentors worked with the young men on basic computing skills. Each of our Riechert students received a refurbished computer to take home at the end of the school year as well as a basic internet connection so that they could ostensibly do their homework, conduct research and eventually apply for jobs and scholarships online. 50 Large was similar to Riechert House – my student mentors tutored the young men on the basics of computer refurbishing, helping them learn how to care for their computer, which they took home at the end of the program. In addition to helping them with basic hardware skills, we also covered some software/online topics that we hoped would improve their academic and personal success.
In every instance, here is what I observed. To simply hand a child a computer is no formula for success. The Riechert kids, left to their own devices, went immediately to DirtCheapRims.com. When they got bored with that, they would then attempt to Google cuss words (only to find that I had filtered that kind of stuff out at the request of the sponsors, the Gainesville Police Department) or to search for pictures of scantily-clad women. The only reason they were not Facebooking is that Facebook had not been invented yet – the 50 Large kids spent plenty of time on Facebook when we let them idle for more than a few minutes. In every case, the first thing the kids wanted to know about the computers we gave them was whether they would be able to play games on them when they got them home. I have never had a child ask me if the computer would make it easier to do a book report!
When I was in the room with my students and student mentors – I generally try to keep the ratio around 3-4 kids per student mentor – we would begin to get some focus from our mentees on the skills we were trying to impart but left alone with a computer, there was not much more than foolishness going on. ALL of us knew that when these computers went home, these kids were NOT going to suddenly begin writing book reports, conducting research or accessing math tutoring online – they were going to play games, visit social sites and yes – look at porn. These are just the facts of how children use technology when its use is not mediated by adults.
So, we come at last to this question of whether technology improves learning outcomes and whether digital divide programs such as the ones I have run (and am running now…) actually make a difference in the lives of technology-disadvantaged young people. What I have observed is that technology without people actually produces the opposite effect – giving wandering minds even more places to wander to and more distractions from the result the computer is supposed to produce, such as increased literacy and critical thinking skills.
This is my last semester teaching at FSU. Over the past five years, I have taught hundreds of students in technology-enabled classrooms and my observations of young adults left alone in a room full of computers is pretty much the same as what I observed in all of my digital divide projects. Students wandering off to Facebook during a lecture is a common frustration among all instructors at the University level – there is no difference in what an 8 or an 18-year-old do when presented with a computer and no direct adult supervision – they goof off and get distracted unless they are repeatedly brought back to the task at hand by their instructor.
We seem to be relentlessly focused at all levels of education – from kindergarten all the way through higher ed – on reducing the number of instructors by increasing the number of computers. We seem to think that there is magic in the box that will somehow impart knowledge and skills to our young people that an ordinary human such as myself could not. Adding technology to classrooms allows administrators to pat themselves on the back because now they can pack more kids into the room without having to hire more instructors – just add computers and VOILA – now one instructor can ‘teach’ two or three hundred students – or more – and somehow through the magic of technology, they are supposedly getting a higher quality experience that will somehow improve outcomes for both the student and the institution. Meantime, everyone frets over student disengagement and wonders why, when we have given the kids all these cool toys in the classroom to help them learn, they are so tuned out and disengaged. The answer is so obvious yet no one seems to get it. Students don’t engage with machines, they engage with people. A computer does not get a young person excited about learning. It does not notice when a student seems to be struggling with depression. It does not hug a young person in distress and say ‘Come to my office later and let’s talk’. It just sits there on the desk, as deaf and dumb as a box of rocks and as replaceable as a toaster or microwave.
Engaged, high performing students will tell you that there is at least one person – it might be a parent, an instructor or another trusted adult – in their life, encouraging them to work hard and succeed, pushing the edges of their envelopes, alternately kicking them in the pants and hugging them as they learn and grow into productive, engaged adults. There is no computer on the planet that can perform these basic human functions – the bottom line is this. A computer can’t love you. Only I can love you. And love is the magic to engagement – you can put all the whiz-bang technology you want in front of young people but if you don’t give them a human being who truly cares about each of them and their success, all you have is a lot of disengaged tom-foolery that distracts from the task of learning.
You might find it odd to hear this from someone who teaches technology and does it for a living but you would only think that if you know did not know me and the hundreds of young people whom I have mentored over the years. They will all tell you that what they learned, they learned from ME – sitting at a computer, yes, but with me over their shoulder and by their side the whole way. The answer is NOT more technology in the classrooms, it is more PEOPLE. Personal interaction is what engages and inspires young people and all of this talk of putting more tech in front of young people at the expense of instructors is wrong-headed and will not produce the fantastical outcomes that everyone envisions. If we spent half as much on instructors as we spend on technology, our young people would be a lot better off. The next time you are asked to vote on a ballot measure that spends ever more money on technology in the classroom, perhaps you would be wise to ask how many instructors will lose their jobs as a result. How many more students will be crammed into a classroom as a result. Whether anyone will be there to notice that your child is struggling and needs a hug or a kind word to help them find their way back to the path. Without me and millions of other PEOPLE like me who truly care about your children – not because they can bubble the correct answer into an online quiz but because they are unique and wonderful individuals who are struggling their way towards adulthood – money spent on technology in the classroom is mostly a waste.
I am leaving FSU in part because of the relentless push to get class sizes up and personal interaction down. I am leaving because I am tired of being told I spend too much time with students. I am being told that I must automate what I do by using more technology to ‘teach’ more and more and more students – the goal is hundreds per semester – and that I must shoo those young people out of my office because what I do – one-on-one mentoring – is not ‘cost-effective’ and ‘scalable’ I am being told that I don’t matter – that all the students need is to use the expensive technology we have provided for them and the outcomes will be the same or better than anything I can provide through one-on-one interaction. I believe that spending time with students has a great deal more impact than putting a 32″ screen on every desk and testing outcomes on a scantron. I no longer want to participate in this relentless push to replace people with technology because while I like technology as much as anyone, it is NOT what makes a difference. A caring, committed mentor makes the difference and no matter how much time changes and technology marches on, there remains this simple truth. One caring person is the only thing that changes the life of a child and in fact, is the only thing that ever has. Because a computer cannot love you. Only a caring mentor/instructor can love you…..
