After watching this incredible machine, I was thinking about the man who invented the idea of an extremely complicated device that executes a very simple task. I wanted to know more about him. With the help of the internet, I immediately had information in my hands. As it turns out, Rube Goldberg was not only an engineer and inventor, but he was also a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor, and author. He was someone with opinions, and it is his opinions on technology that have given me reason to pause and think. It was actually his views about how people failed to embrace technolgy that inspired the senseless machines:
Goldberg was fascinated by the advancement of technology and thought it humorous as people either embraced change and the benefits technology brought or were reluctant as it seemingly increased dependency and laziness. He personally believed people preferred choosing a more difficult route instead of completing a goal simply and directly. As he said, “the machines are a symbol of man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to achieve minimal results”. His inventions were interesting as he did the complete opposite of what most machines do – instead of making difficult things easy, he made easy things difficult. (http://www.rube-goldberg.com/)This caused me to consider my own reluctance to embrace technological advancement in the classroom. Do I prefer a "more difficult route"? Am I fearful of "dependency and laziness"? Just today a teacher in my daughter's middle school explained how much easier her life is now with the online grading system. She explained that last year (the first year of on-line grading) she kept both an electronic and a written grading system. It was tedious and time-consuming to do both, but she admitted that at first she "did not trust the technology". Now she is experiencing the benefits that technology can offer, and is thoroughly enjoying it.
So where does this lead me? It leads me to wonder if part of my reluctance to consider hand-held technology in the classroom has to do with my wanting things to stay the same. Desktop computers are fine, right? Oh, except for the fact that in a 30 minute computer lab it takes 10 minutes to log on and 5 to log off. If indeed you are lucky enough to be at a working computer. The road to a wireless, connected classroom may be a long one, with bumps (how do we make this a socially just educational decision?), and bruises (how do we improve the current millieu of cyber-bullying?) along the way. That said, it is a road that we need to go down if we are to prepare our students for life in this cyber-century.
Loving the connection to Rube.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I think that many teachers really pause at this point of deciding where they'll go with technology, in part because we so easily can imagine doing excellent work in the classrooms with which we're most familiar, but we do possibly take more risks by going into the brave new world where kids access information by means other than our voices and 3 year old textbooks :).
I don't take cyber bullying lightly for a minute, but by far, most bullying is still happening face to face. We don't close schools until we can figure out how to manage it -- we keep working at the problem and working at it.
I see that you're following "The Tempered Radical" blog. I don't know what grades you're planning to teach, but he's developed some really good materials on teaching "Digital Citizenship" for his kids. He's really good about answering questions that people post on his blog posts!
We can tap into the wisdom of experienced teachers who are ahead of us on this road -- most would love to hold a hand out to help us to join them...:)
Jane, I appreciate your comments, and the propulsion forward in my thinking about a technologically connected classroom. I have also thoroughly enjoyed following Bill Ferriter's blog, and I can see the true value in what he is adding to his student's education. My goal is to teach in the primary grades, however my own children are in middle school, high school, and college so I definitely see the genuine need to embrace the world of technology and all that it has to offer. I am however, unconvinced that the i-touch product would be my tool of choice at this point. The screen size is probably my biggest complaint-- both from a consuming iformation(student) and monitoring what is being consumed(teacher) perspective. Maybe something like the i-pad, or netbooks would be a wiser choice for moving a classroom to wireless, 24/7 connectivity. I also wonder how lower income school districts are going to be able to provide the network bandwidth necessary for everyone to be connected? Princeton had to ban students from using i-pads in classes this year due to this very issue. Not saying we can't figure it out... just saying we need to consider all of the ramifications.
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