After having completed the exercise, I have created my first blog page. Unfortunately for me, I am a bit of a technophobe. As listservs popped up, I noticed the entire dynamic of human interaction change drastically. I opted to avoid such discussions, especially when it was just as easy to discuss various subjects with people face to face. Social network sites such as Myspace and Facebook are supposedly meant to keep people in touch. With friends located all over the country and in other parts of the world, I should theoretically be in a situation to make use of these tools. Though I use skype to talk to my parents in Abu Dhabi, I have given up on Facebook. It focuses my energy on people far away to the detriment of my understanding of my immediate environs. To me it is a dangerous influence that causes me to be nostalgic and unwilling to consider the present and the future. In my opinion, there is also something rather lifeless about the discussions that take place on Facebook. This being considered, I sincerely doubt that my core beliefs about using this technology will change. On the other hand, as a Czech saying says, whose bread you eat, whose song you sing. This basically means that the sensible individual espouses the merits of whatever his or her benefactor espouses. Thus, I believe that it was meaningful use of my time and has opened my eyes to the possibility of using such technology to enhance the level of learning my students receive.
Writing down my personal philosophy of not only education, but also my stance on the role of technology allows me to consider the set of biases I hold and how I can change to meet the challenge of the 21st century. The potential for blogging is huge. One of the major concerns of my classes has been getting students to write. Pulling teeth in comparison seems to be a cake-walk. With students spending so much of their time typing random sentences here and there, this gives the students the opportunity to work on something a bit more substantial, but still in the environment they are more comfortable. In response to the article Stephen Downes wrote in 2004, I am extremely skeptical, but appreciative that he included Will Richardson more down-to-earth assessment. Downes uses the statements of fifth-graders from a Quebec City school to argue that students are receptive to a complete re-haul of the education system.When reading that an 11-year-old student wrote "the blogs give us a chance to communicate between us and motivate us to write more", large explosive flares go up. I cannot remember how many times I felt that teachers or administrators were trying to put words in my mouth for their own purposes. The great level of enthusiasm reported from students seems as authentic as teacher evaluations written before grades have been finalized. Though I believe that students need to reach out and contact the rest of the world, I look around me now and see few adults bothering to consider the opinions of others.
The possible benefits are unimaginable and any theorizing in my opinion is mere baseless conjecture. What we know and most of us accept is as follows. It is imperative to help students and teachers make greater use of the technological tools available to reflect, learn and become part of larger communities. As Will Richardson states more and more teachers are employing blogs to communicate with students and their parents. Regardless of the evolution and the definition of blogs, they offer students, teachers and parents the opportunity to share ideas, opinions and suggestions. Instead of a lifeless webpage, the blog allows for more interaction. It also allows for continuous dissemination of related links and resources. The blogs help organize in-class discussion. The nature of the discussion is markedly different though. Students are able to analyze their differences and similarities in a non-threating way. Blogs can be more than extra work. They can become the assignment itself. The programs available now are often free and extremely easy to use. As another fifth-grader states, the impact of the blogs on her day to day life is that she writes a lot more and a lot longer than the previous years. In addition, she pays closer attention to correct composition. In Mark Pilgrim's "Weblog Manifesto", the idea of writers yearning to write freely is presented.
Pilgrim either intentionally prepares for the counter-argument or accepts the heterogeneity of thought and concedes that those who feel neither impathy nor twinge of recognition for his words will not have the same high opinion of blogs. The darker side of what seems to be a flawless addition to education is added. How do we link the free environment with blogging with the restrictive environment of public education? Slip-ups are assured to occur and eventually students will not see the blogging as free at all. Another issue is the by Will Richardson's standards assigned blogging becomes contrived. Once the course is over, students will "drop blogging like wet cement". Blogging can also veer away from authentic and relevant conversation and become trivial. As a student, I can distinctly remember asking myself the question "Why am I doing this?" The answer invariable was that I have to, and if I do not I will be punished. Though I believe that blogging can bring education to life, how this process develops is impossible to predict. I strongly believe that in the near future the kinks will be worked out and blogging or another version of sharing will bring together the isolated learning that characterizes our school systems today and the rest of the world.
In addressing the coming changes within educational technology, Alan November lists six areas of change including perceived credibility of information on the internet, video surveillance of all classrooms, greater integration of the teaching community, the usefulness/uselessness of technology plans, informating instead of automating, and reorganization of the educational apparatus. The one change that alarms me the most and is the most understated aspect of technological integration is further widening the social inequality gap. Under the subtitle of automating vs. informating, November introduces the subject by mentioning Todd Oppenheimer's article in The Atlantic Monthly titled "The Computer Delusion". November wants to take this criticism and use it to support his stance that technology automaters are doing a disservice to the expansion of technology. A $2,000 pencil is still in essence a pencil. November argues that informating is concerned with creating an entirely new way of teaching that "builds capacity in every family for learning". He states that if technology is not infused into all families, the schools will help further widen the social inequality gap. From this line of thinking, one must wonder, who is going to provide each and every family with an up-to-date personal computer? While the government is handing out the money, could I also receive a free Apple? I personally cannot understand people when they say that technology will be an equalizer in society. As with the automobile, there are still people who cannot afford one. For those who do own or lease their own car, they are in the city of Dallas with which I am most familiar chained financially and metaphorically chained to the very machines that supposedly make their lives easier.
When November argues his opinion that every high school should require every student to take an entire online course, I am personally revolted. I remember having a conversation with an older gentleman about the outrageous cost of attending university. He posed the idea, why is it not online and why is it not free. The online courses seem to be coming, but the free element is nowhere to be seen. I see no difference in the cost of traditional tuition and online tuition. As an A student, I may be a very small eccentric minority, but all the same, I enjoy school not only for the matter-of-fact business to be attended to, but the human interaction. Elearning completely and categorically strips education of that human factor. If more than 50 percent of communication is non-verbal, one can read another's statement, but with no gestures to acknowledge, it is impossible to "read" someone. Another issue is public opinion of degrees obtained online. There is the real threat that students who work equally diligently online to obtain such degrees with face discrimination from those who received their degrees in the more conventional manner. From a friend of mine with seven years of teaching experience in the Houston ISD, I was told that the superintendent supported hiring teachers with degrees from only the top-rated Texas public universities. When one considers how this person will react to online degrees, my assumption is even more ominous.
Though I am a technophobe, I am also a realist. I strongly desire to help students prepare themselves for the challenges they will face. If I take the stance, that the new developments occurring within education technology are a mere fad, I do a horrible disservice to the very people I want to help. Limiting students because of personal prejudice is an odious injustice. Therefore, I will work hard to absorb as much as I can from the content and try to conceptualize how I will use this technology to improve the learning experience of my students. I want my students to take the information I present in class and apply it to the outside world. Equally important is that we bring the outside world with us in class discussion. The search for truth is the one pursuit I christen as holy. Whatever helps and enables my students and myself to forge ahead in this pursuit deserves its due recognition. Idealistically, I hope that after this course my suspicion and reservations are dismissed and I find myself a strong proponent of technology with a solid foundation for justifying its inclusion.
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