Here’s the kicker. Despite all my previous (and continued) skepticism about the use of technology in the classroom, I have no doubt– none– about its focused benefits for cross-literate adults, particularly for the traditionally isolated teacher. I have never laid eyes on Patrick. We discovered one another’s blogs through a chance link on a third blog. He’s in New Jersey, for cripe’s sake. And yet I got more pleasure and food for thought out of this day than any professional development I’ve done at home in a long while.

Here comes everybody.

Here’s a few points that jumped out at me.

So…Um…What Was That Content Standard I’m Supposed To Be Teaching Again?

Responding on her fine group blog and at a sister post, Alice Mercer worries that teachers don’t know that tech can actually fit beautifully into their content standards– and you’re absolutely right on that, Alice. Your example of the Listening and Speaking standards grabbed me because I taught ESL for eight years prior to going mainsteam, and ESL folk often joked about Listening and Speaking being “mythical”– that is, completely overlooked. I don’t think there is a state Speaking assessment anywhere in the US outside of ESL, come to think of it. (Anyone? I’d love to know.)

Without a doubt, the massive potential of Web 2.0 in the classroom is precisely this– the marriage of voice and authentic audience. However I have to say that if you’re working with teachers who don’t even know what their content standards are, my impression is that the central pedagogical problem to be solved has nothing to do with tech.

Anything that Fred Astaire Did…

Arthus and others think that an absence of tech in a school is suffocating. Similarly, Bill Ferriter, who is graciously assisting me while I develop my classroom’s first blog, feels that much of tech’s promise is in its inherent motivational factor for kids. While I have witnessed this and agree, I also think that it’s a red herring. A sparkling, glitzy herring in high heels dancing backwards, but a herring all the same. If I scan a page of a vocabulary workbook into the computer, convert it to PDF, and add digital fill in the blanks, my kids may be “motivated” to work on it– but it’s still the same workbook that has no basis in effective teaching practice, flexible problem solving, or language acquisition research.

And let’s not forget the infinitesmal puddle in which this motivational herring is swimming: novelty. Kids tell me they love using tech in school in large part because, admittedly and sadly, its effective integration is still so limited. But trust me– this won’t last for long. What do we have when we all get our 1:1 laptops in the end (as we will), and this novelty wears off (as it will)? Without decent tech that passes the Seven Questions, we have eight-track cassettes. Cue Barry Manilow.

Cortez and the Lost City of Student Investment

This what was bugging me, I finally figured out, about the logic of the several who pointed out the need to have kids invested in their own learning (ostensibly via tech). I mean, heck, yes– this is the El Dorado, kids invested in their own learning. I can’t agree enough. And surely tech provides an avenue to the Golden City. But folks– and I can’t emphasize this enough– I will not buy my kids’ investment with podcasts and then pretend that I’ve helped them care about poetry. That’s cheating.

In otherwords, enthusiasm for the former (tech) may be a powerful vehicle for the latter (understanding the transformative power of good reading and writing), but it sure ain’t always the same thing. If I can’t create a path to investment via the only path there is– a meaningful, personal connection between content, community, and self– then I’m not doing my job.

Could Someone Please Consider the Spotted Owls?

I did notice an absence of comments on the observation that tech has profound effects on the environment and our interconnectedness within it. This is not going away, guys…

And You’re Just Plain Wrong About This Next One, Dina.

And finally, I got some seriously thought-provoking comments on what a “digital kid” actually looks like (thanks Jeff, Jeffreygene, and Tom.) They prompted me to do a little digging, and a little asking, and a lot of rethinking. So next up: What the Heck Is a Digital Native, Anyway?

I’m not arguing here against tech being a powerful means of delivering information, mind you—for example I think Mr. Mayo’s Skyped conversation with the director for an Ad-Free Childhood absolutely rocks, or Dy/Dan’s love affair with his digital projector. I’ve asked kids to take pictures with their cell phones of grammatical errors in the world.

Rather, I’m talking mainly about tech that claims to have inherent pedagogical value.

So here we go.

1) Does the technology, a priori, add value to the learning?

Have you noticed that good teachers can scaffold good pedagogy around an empty juice box? So why is no one on board with “One Empty Juice Box Per Child”?

Because we know better, deep down. The tech has to teach the student something of value on its own before we can justify asking a teacher to pour energy and resources into using it. And trust me: there’s a lot of tech out there that is just an empty juice box in the end.

2) Does this value-added, teacher-independent learning relate DIRECTLY to my content objectives and standards?

Sorry. “Universally related” or “indirectly related” just doesn’t cut it—this is the open door for uncritical idolatry. For example, I have never understood the lumbering Godzilla-like argument that because our kids are “digital natives,” we should de facto use tech in school. Why? If using tech is as natural to them as breathing, isn’t this like asking us to teach kids to breathe?

Now, perhaps your kids are in Appalachia, as Greg Cruey’s are, and are on the wrong side of the digital divide. At this point clearly you’ve got a stronger argument for spending precious pedagogical minutes on the “how to”s of tech.

However, let’s say you teach in a solidly middle class district, as I do. My students don’t need practice in configuring a web page, podcasting, Youtubing, or uploading pictures. THEY ALREADY KNOW THIS STUFF—a heck of a lot better than I do, in fact. In my classroom, they do need to know about how a main character in a compelling story can help them lead better lives of their own. What tech— a priori, remember—helps them do that? I’m not saying it doesn’t exist—only that we must be very careful in our approach to it.

An important exception would be if your content objective is, in fact, evaluating Web content critically (and it sure should be at some point). For this, obviously, any 2.0 tech can be made to serve your purpose. But even here, it is crucial to remember that is the TEACHER creating the learning: not necessarily the tech itself.

3) Can we learn the basics of the tech (not counting bells and whistles) in twenty minutes?

Yep. Twenty. Any more is a waste of my time and my students’.

Or, barring that…

4) Does the tech have the Dishwasher Effect?

In otherwords, does it provide an eventual incontrovertible savings of oodles of time?

5) If it breaks, is there someone at school who can fix it?

If not, is there a workable Plan B?

6) If it is new to my school, will my school support it (even via oblivion to its existence)…

or firewall it before I can make it work in my classroom?

And finally,

7) Have I sufficiently balanced the use of the tech with the things tech has inherent danger of obliterating:

• Environmental sustainability?
• An authentic human connection to the students’ local community: home, school, society, and ecosystem?
• A multi-sensory, diverse experience of the world?

Not everyone is going to agree with me on this last one, but I’ve included it because it’s where I find myself stuck the most. These three things are absolutely essential to educating our students to be good people, and our schools already don’t do enough to address them. If I am going to pile the siren call of technology on top of that fundamental deficit, I’d better have a darn good reason for it.

In many instances, I don’t yet. Although I’m basically an experienced teacher, I am new enough to my subject area to feel that I haven’t developed my curriculum enough yet to give technology this balance. To me, this means right now I just might be better off figuring out how to get my kids to a play, rather than on Powerpoint.

My interim data came about three hundred feet above Heart Lake on Sunday, where the Director of Education for the Adirondack Mountain Club, Ryan, had led me on my first snowshoe trek. I had the nearly surreal amazing luck to have his expertise all to myself, as he announced cheerfully in the dining room of the lodge that morning– “Just you and me today. Everyone else bailed.” Apparently this happens every eon or so.

And so we tromped around, crunching more than usual, Ryan told me– only an inch or two of powder over a frozen crust. We tracked: moles, squirrels, snowshoe hares, grouse, their three-toed hieroglyphics swept out by their own tails. He taught me about the heat of trees melting deep holes that then paper over with drift, called “spruce traps.” I fired off every stupid beginner hiker question I had. And munching on dried fruit and a ham sandwich over the lake, I realized:

Anything (Twitter)– that takes me away (my extra Yahoo account) unnecessarily (Facebook) from this (the golden aspen leaf against the snow)– is something I can do without.

Now, can our students live happy and fulfilling lives without learning to snowshoe? Yes. And no. An experiential, sensual awareness of nature, however it is nurtured, is something none of us can spare, and such educators as David Orr and Richard Louv are making that increasingly clear.

But this line of argument is a whole other post. For now, it suffices to consider how it casts light over the question of tech I should be using in the classroom. For every moment that I tether a child indoors to a hard drive and strip her senses down to two out of five– my own little tech spruce trap– what are we getting in return?

I had a five hour drive home from the mountains to tackle this with every ounce of cold-blooded logic I’ve got. So coming up: my thoughts on how technology may–or may not– answer the ultimate English teacher’s question: Does technology help our students become better readers and writers?

…and yeah, I’ll publish my Twitter data eventually. I’m actually hoping to make that my first stab at real information design, one of the powerful ways tech does help develop our kids’ literacy. But more on that next post.

Here’s a fun interview with the author on the Colbert Report.

Thanks again to Artichoke.