Key Concept 10: Critical Perspectives
10.1 Candidates will be able to understand the pros and cons of technology from a variety of critical perspectives and apply that understanding to evaluating current and potential technology in schools and society.
In ET 690 with David Dutrow, we were tasked with looking at one specific technology platform of our choosing through the lens of several of Neil Postman's Principle's for Technology Use in Education. Our group decided to take a deeper look at Twitter as an educational platform.
We highlighted how Twitter can be used as a broad communication tool for educators and students, with each other and with far away professionals. We decided that this had some very positive practical benefits in terms of "flattening" communication, but that it can also lead to a stunted conversation due to the practical limitations of the message length.
We also highlighted how Twitter conversations can often lead to the narrowing of a message through an echo-chamber effect, especially with specific political biases of users. We concluded that explicit instruction and monitoring of conversations would often be necessary if an educational intent for Twitter was desired.
In the end, we concluded that as with many choices to use technology platforms in educational settings, the use of Twitter constitutes a Faustian bargain with no clear cut right or wrong answer. The choice to use Twitter in any educational setting should take into consideration the training of staff, intention of use, and values of the school community.
10.2 Candidates will be able to demonstrate how technology can be used to empower some and disempower others in schools.
In ET 690 with David Dutrow, we read Susan Maushart's The Winter of Our Disconnect about her family's experience with cutting the cord with technology for a period of six months. Maushart used this experience as a springboard into looking at how technology usage by students impacts their physical and mental health as well as relationships within a family and with friends. One of the concepts that Maushart puts forward is the need to teach students, and adults really, to "see choice" where technology is concerned as a way to give students more power over the technology they have access to. In my paper I describe how the almost constant and instantaneous access to information, whether of an academic nature, or media of some sort, has led to deep disruptions of student sleep cycles and the ability to create sustained periods of focused attention. Maushart's children had formed Pavlovian responses to the notifications from their technology that only the six months of cold turkey lack of technology could break the cycle of. I then delved into the deeper issue of explicitly teaching students how to see choice in their technology usage in educational settings instead of creating environments where technology was either freely allowed without restriction, or expressly forbidden in all circumstances. Both conditions seem to create conditions of misuse and distrust between faculty and students. In addition, I made a set of recommendations for parents to also be instrumental in the instruction of seeing choice for students in such a way that reinforces a message of responsible usage.
10.3 Candidates will be able to use critical frameworks to think about the value of specific technologies.
In ET 690 with David Dutrow we were introduced to Neil Postman and his critical framework of educational technology that views it as a "Faustian Bargain", something that is neither altogether good or altogether bad. This framework forces the user of technology to make an active choice that accepts that there are upsides and downsides to every choice to use technology. We had to select a single platform to analyze through this framework, specifically through the lens of only three of Postman's ten Principles for the Use of Technology in Education.
The infographic assignment asked us to simply look at a classroom technology of our choosing and apply the assigned principle's from Postman. If I had to use that information to make a judgement about whether or not to use Twitter in a classroom with students, I think this initial analysis would lead me to say no.
One of the biggest downsides to Twitter is its limited form of communication which can limit the airing of viewpoints, creating intellectual and political bias. It also tends to be a cut throat environment where followers can quickly gang up on certain viewpoints and drown them out with negative comments. This is possible because social networks of friends and acquaintances are not needed to participate in other people's conversations, simply an account on the platform. This unregulated nature of Twitter has led it to be criticized harshly in our national media and presents a cautionary tale for use in the classroom.
That is not to say that there are not environments and situations that are well suited for student use of Twitter, but they require teacher and student training and coaching to foster proper and safe usage to maximize educational impact. Without that amount of structure and instruction in place, Twitter is simply too risky, too much of a negative bargain, for educators to use safely with students.