2/12 Assignment: "Value Added" of Technology Uses Discussed Thus Far

I'm taking three courses this semester: this one; Psychological Issues in Special Education; and Multicultural Issues in Counseling. All three, it turns out, speak to differences between learning styles and capabilities; and alternative means of working effectively with a diverse student population. I'd like to claim that I carefully planned the timing of my coursework so that I could take full advantage of these synergies, but I'd be lying. Sometimes, synchronicity just occurs.

But as it happens, I have referred to UDL explicitly in one of my other courses (using it to frame the idea that classroom modifications made to benefit special education students can also have the unintended effect of benefiting other students without disabilities as well); and spoken of the potential value of technology in reaching certain students from multicultural backgrounds (who may, for example, not be comfortable speaking in front of groups but may be quite comfortable presenting information electronically).

So I'm getting... somewhere.

The term "value added," which once held a specific technical meaning with respect to production processes, has now entered the popular lexicon and is bandied about freely, with radically different meanings to different people. In Sara Dexter's eTIPS article, she defines technological "value added" to be technology that "makes possible something that otherwise would be impossible or less viable to do" (Dexter article, p. 3). 

Some of the uses of technology that we've touched on in our class readings and discussions have met this standard more obviously than others. In class two weeks ago, we briefly touched on a tiny smattering of the primary documents available through the Internet: this is probably the most clear example of what Dexter calls "value added... in accessing information" (p. 5) that simply was not available to schoolchildren even a decade ago. The Webquest examples we looked at demonstrated ways that younger children might taste some of these primary sources within reasonable parameters, to ensure against the perennial Internet risk of Too Much Information.  By providing a guided, "scaffolding" structure, the Webquest framework may serve to provide "value added... in organizing information," as Dexter defines the term.  The Peace Corps blogs in the Resource list are a neat, very personal window into another world; and both they and the class blog featured in the Teddy Bears Go Blogging example served as what Dexter calls "value added... in communicating knowledge." Even the tableaux we worked with the very first class demonstrated a very quick, very accessible means of demonstrating understanding of the "key moment" in a text -- another example of "value added... in communicating findings and understanding to others."

At the same time, I see limits. In the Teddy Bears Go Blogging example, the most obviously terrific, inquiry-based, multisensory activities that the obviously terrific teachers were doing, were independent of the blog. The role of the blog was limited to communicating after the fact -- which does indeed meet Dexter's definition (and rightly so), but is not itself the main instructional event; nor is it the salient, impressive part of the Teddy Bears story. In the You Gotta BE the Book example, the role of technology is (again, rightly) subordinate to the larger idea of using drama to engage and motivate reluctant readers. Motivation per se actually does not meet Dexter's criteria for "value added" -- she is, perhaps, trying to steer away from the idea of "computer time" as a reward. In any event, as I blogged earlier, using drama (and technology) as motivational tools can be powerful, but ought not be confused with the still-necessary long slow slog of actually learning to read.

Even the wealth of wondrous primary sources: there's room for skepticism about the "value added," particularly in the younger levels of schooling. The Bloom's Taxonomy cognitive model that we discussed in class is a succinct model for the stages of learning; and the types of primary sources we looked in the Valley of the Shadow site were compelling examples of using primary documents to support higher-order Historical Thinking skills such as Applying, Analyzing and Evaluating.

But I would argue that there is a reason why Bloom put the lower order, recall-based skills at the bottom of the pyramid. And a reason that the bottom levels of the pyramid are bigger.  The model is meant to be hierarchical; with higher-order cognitive processes building on the foundational base of knowledge.

The implication of this for the question of "value added" as defined by Dexter is that before the "instructional goal" can turn to analysis and evaluation, students need to acquire significant background knowledge. Before they can plunge in and analyze that astonishing news clip about the adolescent youngster waiting for a bus, to take him to a school that had been closed for four years, they need basic background: about Jim Crow, and Brown v. Board of Ed, and the response of selected school districts, and how the courts were used to effect social change, and a host of other issues.   Otherwise, the clip -- marvelous though it is -- cannot make any sense. Otherwise, there is not, really, any value added.

Otherwise, they're just watching TV.

And that is, over and over, the question that Dexter posed, that we have keep coming back to, with relentless honesty: what is the "instructional intent"? Does technology actually support it?

"When Teddy Bears Go Blogging"....

... unintended audiences applaud.

Lucky kids, these second graders.  Their teachers invite djembe drummers into the classroom.  Let them get wet messing around with water wheels.  Devote hours of instructional time building Ms. Frizzle-style panoramas of Bat Caves and the Great Barrier Reef.  Organize storyteller visits.  Take them to puppet shows.  Muck around with K'Nex in class.  Drip maple syrup onto the carpet.  Wear pajamas to school.

Of course we're lucky too, that these energetic and inspired teachers put up a blog so we all can see what they've done, and learn from and be inspired by it.  Surely the kids' families and friends also enjoyed seeing the pictures on line.  Technology allows Ms. Sherry and Ms. Sawyer to document and disseminate the fabulous activities they've done with their classes, easily, quickly, and cheaply.  Which is terrific!

But it's the Doing, rather than the Documenting and Disseminating, that is the primary instructional point.  

The idea warrants underscoring.  It is easily lost.  It illustrates the point that Sara Dexter made in her eTips article, that educational technology does not possess inherent instructional value.  These kids' teachers gave them the time, material, and freedom to make a mess, to bang loudly, to go outdoors, to conduct their own experiments.  That is what makes these students fortunate.  That is how their imaginations were captured and their spirits sent to soar.  That is what supported what Dexter calls the "learning outcomes."  That the activities were attractively blogged is an extra bonus, a bonus whose value accrues principally to us, a largely unintended audience.

Certainly, kids do benefit from making a record of their activities, and referring back to it, and thereby reinforcing their learning.  And the blog effects that consolidation beautifully; that is the piece that is, in Dexter's terms, the "value added."  However, had the kids put together an old-fashioned lap book with pasted-in snapshots, that too would have done the job (albeit more expensively, and less portably, and with far less audience reach).  We, the anonymous Internet public, are actually the principal beneficiaries of the blog.  The kids benefit from...

Good teaching.

Always worth remembering, that.

1/15 Assignment: Response to Sara Dexter's article

On eTIPs - Educatonal Technology Integration and Implementation Principles, by Sara Dexter

Early in her article, almost as an aside, Sara Dexter tosses off a comment that to my mind merits closer and more careful focus than she herself gives in.  She writes: Educational technology does not possess inherent instructional value..."

I'm a Big Picture kind of gal.  I like to start off with a rock-solid crystal-clear laying-out-of-the-fundamentals before plunging into the minutiae.  And this point is very fundamental indeed; so fundamental that I truly wished Dexter had honored it with at least a full paragraph of its own.  

Educational technology does not possess inherent instructional value.  It is, in other words, a means, not an end in itself.  The mere presence of technology in a classroom does nothing at all, if not used; and nothing of instructional value, if not used with thought and care to support educational objectives beyond the technology itself.  Technology provides tools: no more, no less.  With tools, we can do things -- draw upon information from disparate sources; aggregate and present data; stitch together images and words and sounds; communicate quickly and cheaply.  Today's technology offers tools of great potential, which like all other tools are only as useful as the person wielding them is skillful.  And, also like many other tools, can be misused and even dangerous.

I wish Dexter had laid that sort of thing out, explicitly, in her prelude.   From the rest of her text it is clear that she does, indeed, believe it.

That said, much of what she did write makes good sense.  In the article, Dexter lays out two broad principles for the selection, implementation and integration of technology:

1. The teacher must act as an instructional designer, planning the use of the technology so it will support student learning; and
2. The school environment must support teachers in this role by providing adequate technology support.

The second point is plain common sense: at the most basic, physical level, the classroom must have enough outlets and Internet connections and so on; at the nearly-as-basic (but immensely harder to achieve, particularly in large institutions) level, teachers must be allowed the autonomy to determine which technologies support their instructional objectives (what Dexter calls "learning outcomes").

The first point is the nub of the matter, and is very hard indeed.  What Dexter is saying, rightly, is that in order for technology to serve education, its purpose has to be planned in a manner that supports learning, and its execution has to be managed in a manner consistent with the plan.  Otherwise you are left either with: a) dusty and poorly functioning machines languishing in the back of the classroom; or b) a handful of boys racing through their seatwork so as to jostle over computer games.

At the very outset, the teacher must have succinct clarity about what the "learning outcomes" are -- the teacher must do what Steven Covey, in Principle-Centered Leadership, calls Beginning with the End in Mind.  In school as in business, this is far easier to articulate than to do.  Thereafter, the teacher must realistically assess what Dexter calls the "cognitive demands of the user" -- that is, what the student must be able to do to use the technology effectively.  This requires both a detailed flowchart-like understanding of each small step in the utilization of the technology and a realistic understanding about the capabilities among the students.  (Even just locating an Internet address requires accurate spelling, keyboarding, and ability to scan.  Young kids with reading difficulties may not be able to do this most basic step on their own.)  As well, she must be able to discern what is true "value added" in Dexter's terms -- what the technology is actually doing in support of the "learning outcome" -- from the whiz-bang that can be seductive to students and adults alike, but does not necessarily support instructional objectives.

It is easy, and tempting, to label "quiet and occupied in front of their terminals" as "learning."  But the labeling doesn't actually make it so.  Dexter's article is a useful reminder to keep thinking through the difference.