If new technologies are to improve learning, educators are going to have to unlearn their own paradigms about school and technology, Alan November, a former teacher who is now a consultant, told his audience.
"I was paper-trained," November joked. "It's the medium in which I learned." Such mindsets influence how schools use new technologies, he pointed out. The computer labs so popular in the 1980s, with their computers lined up in rows, "looked just like school." By now, educators should realize that having students visit a computer lab once a month to write and print out five-paragraph essays doesn't begin to tap the power of the technology. "That's a very limited use for a $2,000 computer," November said.
The new technologies "are a different way of looking at the world, a different way of thinking. It's a cultural shift, bigger than a tool." November urged educators to visit with children outside of school to see how they are using technology. "It's absolutely important for leaders to watch kids use technology on their own turf," he said. "You learn a lot."
While educators have been pondering how technologies might enhance the traditional curriculum, the world has changed dramatically. In employment, for instance, we are rapidly moving to a point where most people "will not apply for a job, they will create them." Technology has automated many tasks, while location of the work has become less important. Thus, "we have to prepare children to manage their own work," he asserted. "Your students are going to be economic free agents."
Despite the obvious changes brought on by new technologies, November urged attendees not to become stuck on the technology itself. "The real revolution is information and communication; it's the stuff flowing through the wires and boxes," he said. Educators need to view technologies as possible means to attain fundamental goals, such as enhanced information sharing that paves the way for closer relationships between schools and parents.
- Every teacher should have a laptop computer she is allowed to take home. In time, all teachers should be expected to create their own Web sites as a way of making the curriculum more accessible to parents.
- Shift the responsibility of learning to the students, and measure the capacity of pupils to manage their own learning. "What would your kids do if you asked the teacher to leave the classroom and gave the students a novel problem to solve?" November asked.
- Enrich the curriculum by including "problems that no one has ever solved, and that add value to the world." For example, many teachers have students participate in projects in which they work with other students (sometimes from other schools) to study an issue and contribute their data and knowledge to resolving real problems.
- Include students in your staff development sessions for teachers. As teachers observe how students use technology to learn, they will better understand how they can use it to support that learning, November said.