Know No Bounds.

I've spent some time over the last few days considering (and discussing) the utility of blogs in the educational arena. In truth, I've had some difficulty separating my previous notions of how people seem to use the internet from the manner in which educators might choose to do so. I have long since felt that blogs inevitably seem to go the way of the "op-ed" journal, where opinion reigns supreme and citing of reliable references is limited. Equally, I am generally of the opinion that human beings already spend too much of their professional and leisure time being sedentary in front of one technological gadget or another, and so it's difficult for me to become overly excited about the notion of giving myself, fellow educators, or students one more reason to do so. In fact, if anything, I find myself often feeling like the classroom is one of the few places left where there is truly the potential for complete interaction between humans, and -- in turn -- a rare opportunity to learn from one another.

Of course, it's more complicated than that, as computers in the classroom certainly do not totally deny this human interaction -- they merely seem to sometimes provide an opportunity for interfacing with machines more than people. In these terms, I often wonder if we are creating classrooms that will produce technologically savvy citizens, but citizens who lack a great deal of the interpersonal skills that the truly (human) interactive classroom can offer. My good friend Paul, who is probably the most tech savvy person I know, actually sent me an amazing database of articles concerning technology and computers in the classroom, which can be found at this link. Below, I've also included two of my favorite quotes from an article from that database entitled "A New Assessment of Computers in the Classroom", by Steven Talbot, in which he assesses the main conclusions of the book Flickering Minds: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved, by Todd Oppenheimer:

** Computer technology will not go away. The challenge for schools is to reject fads and use the tools sensibly. Generalizing: "technology is used too intensely in the younger grades and not intensely enough -- in the proper areas -- in the upper grades". The failure in the upper grades is that students are given no deep understanding of the technology, but instead are allowed to occupy themselves with the "hot programs of the moment".

** The computer fad has temporarily blinded us to a central truth that has been evident for thousands of years: the crucial process in education is not a technological one but a human one. In the words of the Forbes editor, Stephen Kindel, "the best schools will eventually recognize a fact that's been apparent since Plato sat on Socrates' knee: Education depends on the intimate contact between a good teacher -- part performer, part dictator, part cajoler -- and an inquiring student". In the end, Kindel added, "it is the poor who will be chained to the computer; the rich will get teachers".

These two quotes do an excellent job of encapsulating my general views of technology in the classroom: it is most certainly a tool that we must present to students in order to prepare them for today's modern world, but it is not a replacement for the human skills and knowledge we must impart to any student, regardless of the era. Furthermore, over the course of the last few days, I've had several conversations concerning the idea of utilizing blogs in education, and I keep coming back to the fact that while I could see the merit of having a "classroom blog", where assignments can be found, links to related topics are posted, discussions occur, etc, I simply cannot get around what a logistical nightmare this would most likely be. For simplicity sake, I'll break it down into three main
complications:

1) Monitoring
How exactly will one teacher monitor the activity of students when those students can participate at any time, in any numbers? As teachers are already stretched thin in the classroom for prep time, how will they manage to fit in even more time to monitor such a blog?

2) Expectations
How central or supplemental should a classroom blog be? Is it something that students should be required to participate in, or merely an optional way for students who prefer such learning to use? Is it fair to force such interfacing on students, or --- conversely -- unfair not to provide it as an option. These questions are complicated, but ultimately lead us to the most glaring problem:

3) Availability
How available are computers and internet access in the community of the school. In the economically distressed school district where I work, technology is often either unavailable or malfunctioning, and the percentage of students who have any such access at home is -- as one might expect -- scarce at best. Knowing this, how feasible is it to design any curriculum which is even remotely dependent on the presence of technology?

I am by no means saying technology has no place in the classroom, as that would be fairly absurd. Still, the complications involved cannot be easily sidestepped, and I myself am still grappling with them, as I most likely will be for quite some time to come.

But what of blogs being used among educators, as a resource and source of professional forum? Here, I can see some true potential for using blogs for something more effective than a personal journal. Ideally, blogs could become a resource where teachers learn from other teachers ( and other educational professionals), as well as possibly even interacting with parents, community members, and the like. Lesson plans could be posted, reviewed, and even edited (given the nature of the wiki phenomena), classroom management strategies and critiques offered, policies examined, and so on and so forth. The possibilities are nearly endless, and quite exciting.

In a way, that is what I'm hoping for this blog to perhaps become in time. For example, my friend Paul (in San Francisco) passed to me (in Pittsburgh) an amazing database worth of articles concerning computers and technology in the classroom. I read many of those articles, found them well written and informative, and posted a link here as something other educators may want to investigate. In turn, other people might cull out quotes from these articles worth further examination (much as I did), or actually go find the primary sources these articles mention as a means towards even more in depth study. To me, the main attraction here is this: Paul sent a veritable library of topical information my way (across an entire continent, over several time zones, and with minimal effort) through a single link. He, as a computer professional, has certain opinions of the information contained in these articles, and I -- as somewhat of a "just joining the 21st century" English teacher -- have my own opinions. However, what's important is that this blog, and blogs like it, give two such differing human beings an easy means to not only share such information, but also consider, review, and discuss it between us. And as that community grows to more and more contributors and readers from increasingly various (though often closely related) fields, that conversation will grow into one that doesn't merely occur between two people, but among many people.

And perhaps that's the ideal of this second The New IdeaList posting: technology (and all which comes with it) certainly brings many new complications into the world of education, but none of those complications may ultimately outweigh its greatest benefit: a conversation based upon unlimited experiences and resources, a chance to learn well beyond the confines of any classroom by asking questions of the entire world.

Cheers, Paul. Let the discussion commence.