As somebody who is fairly tech-savvy, I am surrounded by people who will take a stand against technology at a moment’s notice. This is especially true when technology seems to be successfully replacing more conventional methods — some even environmentally harmful, such as paper.
When the issue of using technology comes up, though, I would myself strongly back a minimum age requirement. I never had my phone until I was 17 or so. I think that 15-16 years is a good limit, not because of elitist adult thinking, but mostly because the Internet, to the unaware, can quickly become one of those forbidden dark alleys no ten-year-old is sent into at night. Or worse.
The e-classroom
Technology in classrooms can serve three purposes:
- It can add a digital virtualisation to enhance students’ imagination unlike the still 2D figures on paper
- It can help students and teachers network easily, at any time or place, specifically off-campus and after campus hours
- It allows students (and teachers) to access everything everywhere while making their bags lighter
The same technology can serve other purposes that it was never meant to. It can be used to play games — there is nothing wrong with this, so long as it is at the right time and place and for the right duration. It can also be used to network socially rather than academically (point #2 above), and social networking (Facebook, Twitter etc.) are things everybody can do away with at least from ten to four during the day.
Beyond this we step into deeper waters: technology can be misused. It can allow people to hack into others’ systems — from fellow students’ devices to school examination paper storages. Worse still, it can be used to, shall we say, view rather indecent, indiscrete things.
Much like alcohol or smoking, the internet is increasingly turning out to be a place where one ought to keep oneself in check. And this inability (perhaps because it comes best by age) is what threatens to make a promising place like the internet every parent’s and school’s worst nightmare.
Who is to blame?
One extremely interesting outlook I cam across was on Edmund De-Horatius’ Wayland High School blog dedicated to their one-to-one iPad initiative (as opposed to the more common one-to-one laptop programme).
Where a lot of others blamed children for not concentrating on class by restricting their attention from diverting to their iPads, Mr De-Horatius rightly points out that the iPad did not create a distraction. Distractions were always there, often as doodling or window peeping, he says. And he is right to an extent. However, not enough people are looking at the iPad as a revolution in terms of education because it has been viewed far too often as an entertainment device rather than a learning aid.
A lot of the approaches teachers use to educate kids in class will have to be re-written. This is like re-inventing the papyrus reed-type paper. However, a common misconception is that giving kids an iPad will make magic. It is only the start, and it is a tool at best. It is up to the teacher to make sure the kids use these tools properly and effectively.
Problems galore
Ars Technica recently ran an article in which they reported Hoboken School mothballing all student laptops because of the dangerously out-of-control problems they caused. Here I am forced to blame the tech department because, the way I look at it, this situation could have been rectified and even prevented.
From batteries to screens, six repair cases came in a day, according to the school. Under other circumstances this would have been torn papers and broken pencils, but the damage is nothing new. Clearly, the kids had to be disciplined and the teachers should have done it.
Network engineer Jerry Crocamo’s statement that “There is no more determined hacker, so to speak, than a 12-year-old who has a computer,” is something I find laughable. Apparently, the kids visited forums on the internet and learned how to bypass security measures that prevented them from accessing certain websites.
This presents two problems: did these kids not have PCs at home? If so, they should have already been disciplined about minding their Ps and Qs on the internet. Needless to say, their parents should have done it by now. If they did not have it, then their parents should have played a bigger part in teaching them.
Looking at it from a kids point of view, it seems to be an unexplored, prohibited place — precisely the kind of thing everybody wants to take a peek into. All said an done, however, should the tech department not have kept up with, ironically, the tech, and should they not have made things more secure? Or are they simply too embarrassed to admit they underestimated twelve-year-olds?
Alongside smart students, the school had another problem: the public using its wireless network. Everybody knew the password and used it. This has nothing to do with the kids, so the fault really lies with the school itself.
iPad in the classroom: a new way of thinking
Every generation wants to stick to its own way of thinking. Some will even go so far as to say the new way is the wrong way. But the fact is that the iPad is here, it is useable, it is a powerful tool in the right hands (much like all tools) and people will have to adapt to it.
A classroom and its ethics need not be written; the iPad (or a laptop) is not that dramatic a shift. Books will still exist alongside technology at schools, at least for another half century, but the larger place devices are taking in our lives is neither inevitable nor a surprise: we have seen before this the wheel, the cart, the automobile, the plane and so on. This is just faster and more widespread, and that does not mean it is a bad thing.
The first people who will have to change are teachers — a lot of them who spent half their lives without imagining that an iPad would exist someday. 70% of teachers had never used an iPad before it invaded their classrooms. By contrast, only half of all kids were new to it.
As with anything new, getting used to an iPad is a matter of time, both for students (who need to learn to differentiate between its stint as a gaming device and as a study tool) and teachers (who need to update themselves on how they can harness the capabilities of an iPad). Is an iPad necessary? Perhaps: as time progresses, students will have to learn more than their previous generations did at that age and anything that makes learning easier, simpler and more straightforward is a welcome change. iPad is one such, as is a laptop.
“Change,” Tony Robbins said, “is inevitable; progress is optional.” That sums up an iPad in the classroom.
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