Learning in the Digital Age

Educational Leadership

December 2006/January 2007

The journal Educational Leadership last covered the ability of technology to impact education in the December 2006/January 2007 issue headlined "Learning in the Digital Age." The introductory piece leads off with the premise that "students today are different than you and me," a point of view that is repeated by a number of the articles. It was Marc Prensky, the author of the lead-off piece, "Listen to the Natives," who coined the phrase "Digital Natives," for example. And Tom March, who with Bernie Dodge, helped develop of one of the first significant innovations of web education, the "Webquest," asserts that the new communication tools our students use are "actually a radical departure from typical human experience." But this issue of Educational Leadership does a fair and balanced job of presenting a wide range of ideas, technologies, and points of view.

On the one end is Prensky’s piece on digital natives. His great divide between digital immigants and digital natives recalls some of the first articles on brain development under the effects of television. Our students are wired differently than we are, so they have different learning needs; different teaching strategies are required to meet those needs. Prensky exhorts teachers to "pay attention to how their students learn, and value and honor what their students know." It seems to me that that’s what most good teachers do already, regardless of how their students are wired or what technologies are available to them. Prensky also suggests that students are more naturally adept at technologies that most teachers "will never master with the same degree of skill." This just doesn't ring true in my experience, which has been that adults lead the way in the adoption and use of technology. The so called "digital immigrants" not only see the usefulness of new technologies but have the background knowledge and depth of experience to discern more quickly what is important and what is fad. I also have questions about playing to the digital natives' lack of attention to what doesn’t interest them. Perhaps part of our job is to help our students develop interest as well as learn to concentrate on those tasks which may seem unpleasant or boring in the short term but which bear much fruit later.

Tom March takes a longer and more philosophical view of the new technologies in "The New WWW: Whatever, Whenever Wherever." He suggests that the effects of the new technologies are not all beneficial or even benign. He recognizes the power of these technologies to pander to many of our, and our students’, less desirable inclinations, becoming somehow tied up with our desires for fulfillment and happiness. It behooves us as educators to learn to teach with these media to counteract the deleterious influences out there, using them to create learning tasks based on students' interests. March then narrows down to one specific web environment that he thinks may foster these kinds of assignments: ClassAct portals. These portals are really pretty much web 2.0 tools used as a gateway to search for information on the web, much like March’s earlier efforts at Webquests. I really have to wonder, though, whether learning under these ClassAct portals are really any more "real, rich, and relevant" than any other learning environment that a teacher pulls together.

Will Richardson outlines a number of tools in his article, "The Educator’s Guide to the Read/Write Web," that fall under the rubric of Web 2.0. He focuses on five: Weblogs, wiki’s, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, and podcasts. Of course, since this issue of Educational Leadership appeared, other tools have sprung forth that push those technologies even further: photo and video sharing sites (Flickr, Youtube), social networking sites (especially the mondo popular Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter environments), and, perhaps even more intriguingly, collaborative document sites (Google Docs). Joyce Valenza, one of the "guns" of the library world, continues in the same vein in "The Virtual Library," discussing how the tools of a 21st century library can help give students guidance through the welter of information available to them. Too often students get only information that is "satisficing," that is, it will satisfy and suffice, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to higher quality information that will lead to deeper engagement with the material. Valenza advocates developing a virtual school library online, a portal to information databases and Web 2.0 tools for classroom use, leading to more quality information and interaction with that information. Libraries should also be well stocked with "the new staples of a 21st century collection--digital cameras, laptops, and flash sticks." As much as I admire Valenza’s work and her ideas, I wonder if she doesn’t gloss over the problems of maintaining this 21st century collection. The problems of maintenance, repair, replacement, and updating this collection are costly, requiring more resources in a time when many school districts seem to be looking for ways at reducing budgets. Also, I don’t know that the quality of the product turned out by these tools really make them as valuable as they should be.

This is part of the point made by Mary Burns in "Tools for the Mind." She begins with the advertised potential of technology of the mid 90’s, when computers "would serve as ‘mind tools’ to build students’ higher-order thinking skills." Too often, however, the technology really "precludes more rigorous kinds of learning." How many times have I seen shallow powerpoint slide shows, copied and pasted from the web, with little understanding of the material involved, or digitally edited movies that really bear little relation to the kinds of learning that is sought. Burns points to three reasons in the adoption of technology that have led to this trend: an emphasis on teacher training in skills rather than concepts, an undercapitalization of technology by school districts, and an overrelance on "conceptually easy kinds of software." I agree with Burns completely when she says that schools should return to focusing on the core areas of teaching, first, and then begin looking to see how technology might help develop these skills. Of course, I would add that schools might look to refocus their priorities in the core areas to higher level thinking skills.

When Harold Weglinsky looks at "Technology and Achievement: The Bottom Line," all that he finds are studies with "shaky results" positing a connection between technology and student achievement. In particular, he finds only a couple of studies, one of eighth grade math students and the other an NAEP assessment of history students using computers. These studies point to a couple of findings showing that quality of computer work outweights quantity, and that students who used computers outside the classroom were more likely to score higher on the NAEP assessment. Like Burns, Weglinsky calls for rethinking the priority of planning around computer use, asking how computers can help students reach curricular objectives, rather than the present push toward technology goals and standards that districts seem to be emphasizing. Finally, Lowell Monke deplores "The Overdominance of Computers." Students, especially younger children, don’t have the background knowledge or skills to effectively use technology, and so computers are really more likely to distract students than to help them "to learn, to communicate, to think." He calls on schools to help student develop their distinctly human capacities and a "deep knowledge of the physical world and community relationships." We should help our students to grow as human beings, first, and to help balance the pervasive influence of technology in their lives by introducing and implementing it slowly and with a wary eye on its use. Monke does call for eventually "outfitting students with high tech skills they will need when they graduate," but I’m not even sure how far down that road I would go. Both he and Weglinsky look to generic technology skills, but perhaps these are best learned "just in time," on whatever job or situation that our students will find themselves. These cultures will take care of whatever technological learning that they will need.

Other articles cover more specific uses or problems of using technology, such as "Navigating the Maze of Hypertext," (students need--and may not have--sophisticated comprehension monitoring skills to successfully find information online) and "Assistive Technologies for Reading," (a look at technological interventions for helping students developing word recognition and comprehension skills.) The most telling comment I came across is a 25 year old quote from media researcher Richard Clark, who noted that instructional technologies are "mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition." (quoted in Hasselbring, "Assistive Technologies for Reading.")

It’s quite easy to find journals and magazines that shill for technology. T.H.E. Journal, a freebie that comes regularly every month, springs readily to mind. Other publications, such as Jamie McKenzie’s webzine From Now On, take a much more critical view of educational technology (see his review of Marc Prensky, for example.) But this particular issue of Educational Leadership showcases many of the strengths of the journal and shows why it is a great resource for teachers, administrators, and especially librarians to have on hand. It takes up an issue, presents a wide array of views on the topic, and gives a number of specific and helpful strategies for teachers to try in the classroom. It counters Marc Prensky’s breathless enthusiasm for "digital natives," with Lowell Monke’s more critical appraisal of computer use, allowing the reader to ponder the bigger issues at stake.