"When you really think about it, our current paradigm of education is not designed for learning; it is designed for sorting (Reigeluth, 1992).” In some ways, education currently sorts students by comparing students to each other, grouping them by ability or mixing ability, encouraging different strengths knowing the potential career paths for success in an individual, and standards based testing. Are we really just pigeon holing our kids, allowing for guided success or failure? Throughout the article Beyond Technology Integration: The Case for Technology Transformation, the authors challenge the purpose of education and persuade that technology shouldn’t be used to support the educational experience, but instead transform it! I agree with this and believe I use technology as support and on occasion to transform. Powerpoint presentations, lets be real, supports by displaying images and information, it does not transform the way my students learn. Google forums and shared documents have a much different effect of connecting students throughout the process and building relationships in addition to the depth of knowledge learned. I want to get to a point where my, “teaching methods might not only shift from passive to active learning, but also help develop initiative and responsibility in learners for their own learning,”(Reigeluth, 2002, p. 10). There is an art teacher who I recently met, who is teaching in a much different way; facilitating her students learning. The number of successful students in her class, whose pieces went onto major art competitions, was outstanding. Her students were self directed, self inspired, and were highly self motivated, taking so much pride in their work, and this concept is exactly what the article is encouraging with the use of technology. I appreciate how this article challenged me to take a look at the tools I use and discern whether they are worth the hassle, and, “work on inventing methods that are consistent with key markers of the learning-focused paradigm, keeping in mind the new capabilities that technology offers,” (Reigeluth, 2002, p.11).
The second article was a much different approach to technology in education. I rather enjoyed the article because it challenges readers to view technological advances as either an efficient problem solver or as a useless tool that, “divert(s) the intelligence and energy of talented people from addressing the issues we need most to confront,” (Postman, 1993, p.1). He goes on to bash the intent of schools to educate, and instead argues that they prepare students for social society. This may be true, but I believe that since 1993, a shift has occurred and technology has greatly played a role in allowing our students to excel individually and in groups based on their own effort and motivation. Technology motivates students, especially if using the tools that push them to expand their horizons, share their experiences and gain new ones, and when used for more than just research, facilitates collaboration. I have always thought that more technology meant more available resources to gain more knowledge and information, however Postman makes a good point in that the excess of technology has us, “swamped by information, (that we) have no control over it, and don’t know what to do with it,” (Postman, 1993, p. 3). In addition to allowing technology to transform our teaching, we need educate our students on how to use, not abuse, technology for its greatest purposes. The skepticism Postman presents encourages me to really think about the technology that I use, being able to strongly support the choice for using it, and its transformational properties, or abandon specific tools for their lack of solving a given problem, and instead overwhelming my students with more visuals, information, and unnecessary tools.
Works Cited
Reigeluth, C.M. (1992). The Imperative for Systemic Change, Educational Technology, 32 (11), 9-13.
Reigeluth, C.M. & Joseph, R. (2002). Beyond technology integration: The case for technology transformation. Educational Technology, 42(4), 9-13.
Postman, N. (1993). Of Luddites, learning, and life. Technos Quarterly, 2(4).
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