Lately I’ve been giving thought to the value of the Read/Write Web in education. While there are numerous texts cataloging the conceptual advantages of using computers in support of educational aims, I am still struggling with why adoption has been relatively slow.
As an educational technologist and teacher of teachers, I find myself asking “What do I want to see happen in our classrooms?”
Blogging and the Read/Write Web has opened numerous social and educational doors for me. Thus, I wonder if other educators are not facile with Read/Write technology, will the Read/Write Web be as useful or meaningful to them?
Specifically, to what end should we be using the Read/Write Web in classrooms? And, in terms of accountability, who decides which instruments and measures are to be used as a means for assessing our skills and abilities?
As a fledgling member of academia who studies computing in education, I am regularly asked to show evidence of how computers and access to the World Wide Web lead to higher student performance.
Over the years, I have come to observe that tools do not lead to better student performance unless the tools are a part of the student skill set. (This same issue is similar to a student’s facility with languages and how well she performs on standardized tests based on the languages she is skilled in.)
Is my wish to see the Read/Write Web ubiquitous in learning environments both for students and educators alike what Dewey (1938) calls an “illusion of perspective”? In other words, I never saw how I might have been constrained by my lack of access to the Read/Write Web until I had access.
Similarly, in his text Mind as Action (1998), James V. Wertsch writes:
“We are likely to live quite unreflectively with an illusion of perspective until some change comes along to challenge it and bring a new illusion into existence” (p. 42).
Illusory or not, the introduction of the Read/Write Web changed many of our lives for the better; yet, at the same time, it created an imbalance in the way many of us think about what it means to be educated in this day and age.
Read Write technology provides both affordances and constraints for how we understand and act in the world. This “new” technology and our understanding and use of it are limited by the means we are necessarily employing. If reality as we know it will always be a selection, a perspective we choose to take, then it will be a reflection of reality based on the means we choose to view it.
Without getting too engrossed in the ontological nuances implied here, my main point is that my use of Read/Write technologies influences the way I see the world and guides my thinking about how I feel we need to educate future generations of students and teachers.
Not that this necessarily a bad thing, but how important is such a perspective? Well, consider how the limited perception of policy wonks and other elected officials so grossly mis-define the aims of public education as seen in the mandates associated with No Child left Behind (NCLB)? While I assume most people believe that transparency and accountability are good things, how did we end up framing our educational system (in the U.S. at least) on age-based standardized test scores of basic skills that assume all can children learn the same thing the very same way?
If we are to hoist a petard that shows how informal educational opportunities associated with the Read/Write Web will better serve global interests, what will be the markers of success? Who will determine these marks? And will we be able to mobilize educators to adopt Read/Write technologies in meaningful ways?
In a commentary in the Friday, July 13ths, Philadelphia Enquirer, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, chair of the Education Commission of the States, and the 2007 Kansas Teacher of the Year, Josh Anderson, noted that the United States spends 240 percent more per student than it did in 1971 (after adjusting for inflation), yet recent data released by the U.S. Department of Education shows achievement test scores to be the lowest they have been in 20 years.
Other provocative research included in their commentary reveals that only 5 percent of U.S. high school graduates can demonstrate advanced reading skills while 2 percent can demonstrate advanced mathematics and science skills. NCLB focuses on providing public school children basic skills. Yet, if the U.S. wants to thrive in a global economy, basic skills are simply not enough. In their commentary Sebelius and Anderson call for a change in the way educators and citizens think about the education system. But calling for change is not enough. Similar to A Nation at Risk panels assembled in the 1980s, I believe it is time to call another set of panels to task that understands how important innovative and creative thinking are to our world’s survival.
Every action is a political action, and every action shapes our collective future in some way or another. Can bloggers call for this new task force, help outline the course of action, or is our perspective so limited by our choice of Read/Write technologies that we will not be able to see the whole picture as clearly as we need to?
As my wife regularly notes, perhaps I’ve had too much to think. Thus, I turn it over to you and your thoughts. Comments and links to other blog posts, are openly welcome and encouraged.
References:
Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The theory of inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York: Oxford University Press.
Keywords: A Nation At Risk, affordances, assessment, basic skills, Classroom 2.0, computing, constraints, creativity, educational technology, educators, evaluation, formal learning, informal learning, innovation, James Wertsch, John Dewey, Josh Anderson, Kathleen Sebelius, knowledge, learning, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, participation, political action, politics, public education, Read/Write Web, reflection, research, School 2.0, society, student achievement, teachers, teaching, technology, Web 2.0
Comments
Chris...I know this line is an extension of many of the conversations that have been taking place on the periphery of late. How do we translate our own transformation and our new beliefs in what education and learning can be into meaningful action that affects teachers and students and a larger scale? How do we "infect" others with not only the passion that we feel as learners but with the common sense we see as educators who see a very different learning landscape being created "out there?"
I agree that at some point, we need a national discussion about what education means in this environment. I just wonder whether a panel such as you suggest would be able to make significant change when still so few people have a context for what is happening. Heck, we're not even sure what is happening on many levels.
I wish I had more time to respond...they just called my flight. Thanks for moving the conversation forward once again.
What if we put together "expert" panels, charged them with coming up with a set of guiding principles to redefine education, and gave them no budget for travel or meetings? Instead we made available to them the collaborative tools of the Read/Write (or as Will Richardson recently said, the Read/Write/Connect/Reflect Web) and made available supports to help panel members use the tools effectively. I think you could sell this approach in Canada. We haven't had a Royal Comission in the last half hour, so we must be due for one
I hope my comment doesn't appear to be too simplistic or "pollyanna"; that isn't my intent. I feel very strongly though that until you actually use the collaborative tools of Web 2.0 to accomplish tasks that are not technology-focussed, but just "the job that needs to be done" you won't understand the implications for education reform.
Chris,
This may be just my perception, but one reason why the read-write web has not taken off the way it should have, may be, that students still like to be taught rather than play a proactive role in their learning. Offcourse the read-write web does not elliminate the teaching part, but it does require more effort from the learners (and subsequently more gain to them as well).
As the body of knowledge grows at a faster pace than we can keep up, using the read-write web (or the teach-learn community model) might be the only way to keep up with new knowledge effectively.
I think the change is happening, even though a bit slowly.
--
Regards
Parag
Will,
I obviously had the conversation in mind when I wrote this piece. Somehow I feel the need to properly politicize the debate. I think hosting town meetings around the country would be really helpful. Perhaps I need to contact people at PBS and see if we can get Bill Moyers or someone to take up the charge. Another example would be Al Gore--He's made global warming a household concern. I feel like we need someone of such stature to carry the torch for education, thus my suggestion for a panel review. But you're right, that's probably not enough.
Diane,
I think you might be on to something. Seriously. Using the tools we espouse actively and meaningfully would speak volumes to those paying attention. Pollyanna or not, I like how your mind is working here. My fear is, like many good TV programs with smart writing and thoughtful premises, it'll only last 3 weeks before it is dropped for stupid pet tricks or some other totally mindless entertainment. But I want to think more about your ideas. Do keep me apprised.
Parag,
You've touched on one of the elephants in the room -- how we train kids to be passive learners as opposed to active participants. I agree that change is happening slowly. But how long must we wait. It reminds me of the debate on evolutionary change vs. revolutionary change. Being a bit of a subversive, I often want to pull the tablecloth from beneath the plates and wake people up by banging and crashing the party. However, that might only have a limited effect and possibly not the one I desire.
Thank you all for your comments.
Sebelius and Anderson call for a change in the way educators and citizens think about the education system...
Yes, but what are they really calling for? My guess is they want some educational savior who will redeem the past by taking on its sins. "Reformers" are all alike in that they assume that they are the only game in town when alternative systems are already seeping into the interstices of systemic failure. And I am not talking about Microsoft High or any other such corporate takeover of the status quo. Learning is being brokered on levels formal and informal outside of school on an everincreasingly relevant and credentialled way. In fact I think this education is more liberal than the one I got in four years simply because it fosters an attitude of tolerance and flexibility toward what learning really is. If you have read any of Taleb's new book The Black Swan I feel what Will likes to call " a shift" in education. We are like the elephants who just before the tsunami 'hear' the infrasound of the approaching wave and head for the hills.
For tools to revolutionize they must be used in revolutionary ways. In other words if you are thinking about new tech tools you absolutely must stop thinking about how to integrate them into the classroom. The tools have turned the classroom to rubble so that now you must build anew, not clean the mortar off the block and build another schoolhouse. Unless, of course, you just want to run out the clock to your retirement. I do think that there are ways to work within the system, but it is obvious to me that most of us will be Moses seeing not even a foggy glimpse of the Promised Land.
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