From the Washington Post, regarding the current state of affairs at T.C. Williams High School
Sounds cool. They've got a bazillion dollar campus and projectors that were previously reserved for boardrooms and universities.
I understand that every school wants to be the best. In our current society of quick fixes it seems like an easy solution. "Hey, let's buy the newest fanciest equipment out there and we'll get the best results."
But is this really making anything better?
Maybe it's because because my schooling was finished before this insane technolust took over, but I can't even imagine a class where discussions and debates are replaced with message boards and chat rooms. Of the few collegiate courses I've taken the one that I learned the most from was my Television Production course. I honestly believe, in hindsight at least, that this was because there was so much more direct interaction between us and our professor. This was the class where we watched the fewest video presentations (ironic?) and spent the class talking to each other. We weren't shown a PowerPoint presentation on how to frame a close-up versus an extreme close-up. We were told how to by an experienced professor and then shown how to do it using an actual television camera.
When used as a tool technology can be fantastic. But when we try to substitute technology for actual substance we run into trouble. Over these first couple of weeks we've been as guilty of it as anyone, and I'm sorry. I really am. We have, on more than a few occasions, thrown (often hilarious) videos at you in place of actual commentary and information on technology and the policy that surrounds it. Did doing that make us any better than any of a thousand other websites? No.
That being said, is the same methodology of replacing substance with technology going to improve our schools?
Last September, we moved into a new $98 million building in Alexandria, one of the most expensive high schools ever built. Natural light floods the classrooms, and each one is equipped with a ceiling-mounted LCD projector, which transfers anything I can put on my laptop computer -- from poetry readings at the Library of Congress to YouTube interviews with Toni Morrison and other writers -- onto a large screen at the front of the room. Students' behavior seems much improved: A cafeteria that looks like something out of an upscale mall has had a curiously pacifying effect on them, as has the presence of 126 security cameras.
Sounds cool. They've got a bazillion dollar campus and projectors that were previously reserved for boardrooms and universities.
The latest is the "school pad" -- a hand-held device that allows a teacher to roam around the room and underline whatever the LCD projects onto the screen. In other words, it saves teachers from walking a few feet to their desks to click the computer mouse. The school system ordered 77 school pads for T.C. at $495 apiece, even though one teacher said they reminded her of "the Magna Doodle pads we had as kids. It's another way to waste money for people who are too lazy to write on the board."
Wait. Seriously? I don't remember having a single teacher who would wander around the room while they were presenting something on the blackboard or overhead projector (which, by the way, is gone at T.C. Williams). I certainly remember art teachers walking around to see what we were working on. I even recall teachers roaming the rows of desks during tests, on the lookout for cheaters. This seems a little goofy if for no other reason than the school spent $38,115 on these stupid pads. That's enough money to pay a 1st-year teacher's salary (based on figures from 2005) and still have over $3,000 to spare.
I understand that every school wants to be the best. In our current society of quick fixes it seems like an easy solution. "Hey, let's buy the newest fanciest equipment out there and we'll get the best results."
But is this really making anything better?
I have to say I agree. Any idiot (myself very included) can throw some numbers into a calculator, but it doesn't mean that they've learned any math. I have spell check (grammar, too) but that sure as hell doesn't make me a better writer.
More than ever, he [a social studies teacher] says, "our students want to push a button or click a mouse for a quick A, B or C answer. Fewer and fewer of them want to think anymore because good thinking takes time."
The human voice and face-to-face contact have been replaced by e-mail and Blackboard, a computer program that allows teachers and students to communicate via the Internet. I've always thought that in some ways schools should be like families, but as one experienced teacher puts it, "We're becoming like a correspondence school where all communication is faceless."If they're this big on technology why even have the kids come to school? Why not just have everything offered as an online class? I mean, if you want to prove that your school is the most technologically advanced what better way is there than to abandon the traditional classroom altogether?
Maybe it's because because my schooling was finished before this insane technolust took over, but I can't even imagine a class where discussions and debates are replaced with message boards and chat rooms. Of the few collegiate courses I've taken the one that I learned the most from was my Television Production course. I honestly believe, in hindsight at least, that this was because there was so much more direct interaction between us and our professor. This was the class where we watched the fewest video presentations (ironic?) and spent the class talking to each other. We weren't shown a PowerPoint presentation on how to frame a close-up versus an extreme close-up. We were told how to by an experienced professor and then shown how to do it using an actual television camera.
When used as a tool technology can be fantastic. But when we try to substitute technology for actual substance we run into trouble. Over these first couple of weeks we've been as guilty of it as anyone, and I'm sorry. I really am. We have, on more than a few occasions, thrown (often hilarious) videos at you in place of actual commentary and information on technology and the policy that surrounds it. Did doing that make us any better than any of a thousand other websites? No.
That being said, is the same methodology of replacing substance with technology going to improve our schools?
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