“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.” -E.M. Forster
Providing these new tools for everyone could be hard, if not for AISD’s new program, EVERYONE:1. The program is an initiative to provide every high school student with a Chromebook, which Johnson thinks is absolutely necessary. She presents the same question many middle schools share: “Why invest in moving your whole curriculum to BLEND when your students can’t get to it?” If a semester class is added, would students be motivated to pay attention? Just the possibility of an easy A isn’t enough for some students. And, as Johnson says, “It sounds like a waste of time.” Instead of a long class, maybe something shorter and more laserfocused is in order. Johnson says, “I think a class, certainly not a semester class, maybe a one or two hour thing might be appropriate. Just, more about safekeeping, not spilling liquids.” She also says that most students are motivated to learn how to use their computer by just the fact that they have to use it. That motivation certainly translates into an ability to perform. “I think everybody would know what to do,” she says. “I don’t think they would necessarily do it well.” And when it comes to the difference between a student that can use technology well and one who can’t, it has nothing to do with intelligence, or lack thereof.
It’s all an issue of confidence. Students that don’t have a certain measure of confidence are more likely to suffer in silence. Johnson says, “They’re afraid they’ll do it wrong, or that kind of thing. You want to figure out how to avoid that.” For some teachers, technology can actually work to help that issue. When you have students at many different levels, providing different content for many levels is incredibly helpful. And when everybody is doing something that they’re able to do, and doing it at a better pace, they’re more likely to be comfortable with new material. So is creating a new class really the best idea? The truth is, it’s probably less about making a new class about using technology, and more about integrating technology more into all of our classes. Instead of telling children how to use, for example, Google Docs in a class dedicated to that, have students use it in English and ensure the teacher knows how to help. If creativity is a part of all classes and technology is the easiest platform to create, its use, and correct use, will naturally spread. The focus should not be adding new classes, but improving existing ones to accomplish what we want.
TechEd / Fall / 37