Technology: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Line drawing by Mark Doerr, Spokane Fall Community CollegeYour teaching colleagues across the state have much to say about the omnipresent technology ... Read the newly released FACTC Focus 2007 - Techology: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to find out what they think. Also compare salaries (page 19-21) at community and technical colleges across the state – full- and part-time faculty and college presidents.
“I believe faculty has to be motivated and inspired by change to seriously adapt to new technologies and continue to incorporate them into the classroom. Let’s face it: the way of our world in the future will be technologically based. I’m just trying to stay in line (never a step ahead!!) with change …” - J. Salas, Olympic College
“Choosing less technology does not mean that newbies (“noobs”) are dummies. But on another level, it affects how we relate to our students, who often seem to remain young each year as we grow, er, wiser.” - Lee Sledd, Tacoma Community College
"A new technology might not change what students have always learned in writing classrooms; but, in this case an online synchronous discussion [in a computer-equipped classroom" laid bare the mushroom roots where the discrete, private messiness of learning grows, and how it grows: through mysterious, half-blind, and unique, personally-felt underground connections."
- Jill Stukenberg, Clark College
Share your thought with us!
Jennifer Wu
North Seattle Community College
“I believe faculty has to be motivated and inspired by change to seriously adapt to new technologies and continue to incorporate them into the classroom. Let’s face it: the way of our world in the future will be technologically based. I’m just trying to stay in line (never a step ahead!!) with change …” - J. Salas, Olympic College
“Choosing less technology does not mean that newbies (“noobs”) are dummies. But on another level, it affects how we relate to our students, who often seem to remain young each year as we grow, er, wiser.” - Lee Sledd, Tacoma Community College
"A new technology might not change what students have always learned in writing classrooms; but, in this case an online synchronous discussion [in a computer-equipped classroom" laid bare the mushroom roots where the discrete, private messiness of learning grows, and how it grows: through mysterious, half-blind, and unique, personally-felt underground connections."
- Jill Stukenberg, Clark College
Share your thought with us!
Jennifer Wu
North Seattle Community College
posted by Jennifer Wu @ Tuesday, November 06, 2007
6 Comments:
The Emperor's New Technology
As a community college instructor, I am struck by the wrong-headedness of much of the celebration of "technology" around my campus and in my district. ("Technology" in this case usually as short-hand for web-based or digital streaming technology, as if "technology" was invented yesterday).
First, there is the irrational exuberance of "innovation" and seeing innovation as a goal. Innovation, the use of new things, can be a very necessary method for achieving real goals, like quality or achievement of excellence. INNOVATION FOR ITS OWN SAKE IS A HORRIBLE GOAL -- it means you do whatever is new because it is new, because newer is better, which is a deeply flawed assumption. If innovation is a great goal, and the more innovation the better, then why not replace everything every month -- every instructor, every administrator, every piece of technology, every policy?
Of course that sounds absurd. That's because we are no doubt already doing some things perfectly well, and changing for the sake of change would be pointless and counterproductive. Some prices are too high to pay for newness. Exactly my point.
The administrative benefit to innovation as a goal is that innovation is very simple to measure and very easy to prove. "We never had this before and now we do. Presto! Innovation, goal achieved, new line on the C.V." One can always point to something NEW one has done, but perhaps quality would be a better standard than newness.
Secondly, I find it chilling when I read or hear the suggestion that the future is clear, this is what is going to happen, either get on board or get run over. It is not quite "might makes right," but it is certainly a very insidious form of peer pressure, that nasty demon our students have been taught for years to fight. I am reminded of some of the most powerful delusions of the twentieth century -- Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc., were very clear in their argument that their societies were riding the wave of the future. "Don't get left behind! You want a job, don't you?"
The events of the past are an aggregate of decisions people made. The future is the same way -- it will be the product of many people making decisions. I can't prove that everything is not pre-ordained, but I prefer to believe in some form of free will. I tell my students to be suspicious of anyone who tries to sell them the future. Call me deluded, I think the future is not set, and we in the present have still have something to say about it.
I'm not saying the internet is just a flash in the pan or is just a brief fad. But, can we please maintain some balance? Is faith-based conformity in the name of innovation really a good policy? Such is the power of the idea of innovation that many people forget that not all change is positive. Newness is not inherently good or bad. It is simply newness.
Maybe I am just naive, but when did the community college simply ape the corporate business world? Now we just accept rapid obsolescence as a fact of life, when it is partly a creation of a larger marketing strategy. There is a giant dumpster here on campus holding dozens of computer monitors that were cutting edge four years ago and now are just junk. Does this seem like madness to anyone else?
Perhaps after tenure I'll speak more freely and in more detail....
Well said. Your point on the planned obsolescence of hardware gets to an important ethical challenge of what has become routinized innovation at a rather accelerated pace. I am also depressed by the contant flow of cyber-junk.
Is Jonathan Franzen on your shelf?
"The necessary lie of every successful regime, including the upbeat techno-corporatism under which we now live, is that the regime has made the world a better place. Tragic realism preserves the recognition that improvement always comes at a cost; that nothing lasts forever; that if the good world outweighs the bad, it's by the slimmest of margins."
But perhaps his bitter glass can be called half full, if only for the moment;
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10278703
The issue is that life is better than the past in material standards, but the whole glass could be tipped over if we aren't careful. The tipping point.
I wonder if the side effects of technological consumerism are an afterthought in much of the planning of our IT infrastructure? What can institutions do to 'keep up' with the greatest efficiency and least waste? I'd like to know who is doing what on this.
Bottom line, philosophy aside, environmental pollution and labor standards should be tackled head-on in our investment in this or any other manufactured good.
Note: This message is re-posted by the FACTC Blog administrator. The original message posted by someone using the sign-in identity as "author" could be misleading.
I see one other thing I would have fixed in abother edit- the implication that tech should be used in EVERY classroom is not my position. That would be an over-reaching statement. However, like 'diversity' or 'international education' integration at some level across curriculum is ideal, because the change is global and systemic in nature.
As for the inevitablility- the big stick, getting with the program- I'll be clear my view is not that resistance is futile. Some sticks belong firmly in the mud and some changes are to be resisted. I will simply note that "google" is now a verb, describing a skill I have come to appreciate; and one not many of my students are adept at. This effectively closes off a world of information (admittedly not uncluttered with garbage) to them. I see part of my duties as exposing them to that world, and then as adults they can decide the extent of their participation. And, like intercultural communication, I have some duty to try and make that exposure a positive experience (which is a challenge given some of the products).
January 01, 2008 6:48 PM
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