Academic Exchange Quarterly Fall
2010 ISSN 1096-1453 Volume 14, Issue 3
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Zeitgeist Essay |
This article introduces a new feature in
Academic Exchange Quarterly – “Zeitgeist Essay.” “Zeitgeist Essay” will feature explorations
of compelling social and political issues of the day drawing attention to
academic and other literature. To
illustrate, the essay that follows examines one academic’s ambivalence about
technology’s place in today’s classrooms.
As the author, I seek to contribute to on-going explorations of the
strengths and limits of instructional technologies. The essay suggests that, although e-learning
and technology offer potentially significant pedagogical benefits, their use
also risks gravely compromising the learning process. The essay concludes with a call to academics,
policy makers, and the general public to think critically about what is required
for pedagogical success in today’s diverse teaching and learning environments.
John A. Berteaux,
PhD., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Prelaw, and Peace Studies, California State University
Monterey Bay
In Teaching,
Efficiency Isn’t Sufficient
John A. Berteaux,
When Sister
Mary Ilene called the roll in her second-grade classroom more than 50 years ago
and I answered “present,” without knowing it, I made a statement about my
existence, location, and consciousness (awareness) – my presence. Now as I address students sitting in my
classroom who intermittently peer out over the top of their laptop screens, or
watch them slip from class in the middle of a lecture responding to their muted
cell phones I wonder: Are they really present?
Or are they sitting in class checking their email, surfing the Web,
tweeting, texting, or obsessing over Facebook?[1] To be
“present” today, in the virtual world, is to be available 24/7, interminably
attached to a cellphone,
Blackberry, iPAQ, iPAD, or
laptop.[2]
My point is
that cellphones, Blackberries, iPAQs,
iPADs, and laptops, so helpful, so appealing, so
seductive, are transforming us in profound ways. For example, these devices may allow us to
fashion or reinforce intimate relationships, but perhaps at the expense of
face-to-face relationships. Or they can
disrupt family and work life.
By his own
account 43 year old, father of two, entrepreneur Kord
Campbell “struggles with the effects of the deluge of data. Even after he unplugs, he craves the
stimulation he gets from his electronic gadgets. He forgets things like dinner plans, and he
has trouble focusing on family.”[3] For
some the Blackberry has become more than a tool or gadget. Have you ever heard someone called a “crackberry”?
Communication can become an addiction; The New York Times notes that a Facebook addiction has led many to “unfriend
Facebook.”[4]
Colleague Josina Makua advises me that my
uneasiness is like that expressed by Plato in the “Phaedrus.” In that dialogue you hear Socrates maligning
the written word. He suggests the
written word is an inherently insidious form of communication because it
debilitates the capacity of memory. It
just sits there – we can’t query it. We
can’t have a dialogue with it. Socrates
insists that the written word should be fought by anyone who cares about
philosophy.[5]
So there’s Plato, who discovers his vocation
to philosophy by reflecting on the life and teachings of Socrates, vilifying in
writing the written word – the written word which to us has become so helpful,
so appealing, and so seductive. Whereas
today separated from Plato by two millennia, I am using a laptop to disparage
the ubiquitous presence of technology.
All of this makes me wonder if I should be a little more circumspect
about my apprehensions. Maybe I should
ask, what is it about e-learning and technology that can be beneficial, and how
does it really compromise us?
I began to use
Blackboard six or seven years ago. From
Blackboard it was an easy step to using a laptop and e-texts in the
classroom. While shying away from Powerpoint presentations, I quickly took to Microsoft
Office Onenote Notebook. Microsoft suggested that I think of Onenote as the electronic equivalent of a paper notebook.
Using a stylus to write on my laptop monitor, the program made it possible for
me to project my lecture outline and notes onto the screen in front of the
class. It offered me a sense of
flexibility and freedom that Powerpoint did not. Furthermore, when combined with a wireless
projection adaptor, Onenote left me free to walk
around with laptop in hand outlining the lecture, highlighting comments,
drawing pictures, or simply switching back and forth from the e-text used in
the course to my lecture notes. Students
commented that my lecture outlines and notes were easier to read. At the end of lecture I simply saved the
day’s work on my computer – no erasing the board. My lectures were enhanced and I was more
efficient.
Last semester,
with the help of Cynthia Compean, our Assistive
Technology Specialist, I combined Onenote with Camtasia. Camtasia is screen-capture recording software. Now not only was I able to capture my lecture
outline and class notes using Onenote, but Camtasia recorded and synchronized my voice with the
material in Onenote.
When I combined Onenote, Camtasia,
and ilearn (the platform we currently use on campus),
students gained access to the lecture anytime, anywhere. I was especially attracted by what this meant
for intellectually and physically challenged students, who often needed to
listen to the material a second time or had trouble taking notes.
Although these
programs seemed to be a boundless resource, I became plagued by niggling second
thoughts. Indeed, today I remain uneasy
and unable to commit fully to the technology.
Why? I wonder whether students
would attend class if they could get the lectures on line. While these programs seemed ideal, one could
end up holding a class for one or two students, or at worst, standing in the
classroom alone. Am I being a Luddite, an obstructionist?
How could I get in the way of something so beautiful, so efficient?
At the end of
the semester I asked students to email me and tell me what they thought about
the Camtasia program.
All the comments were supportive.
Ryan said, “I used Camtasia and found it
useful because not only were the notes available for viewing later, but also
having the commentary in addition to the notes increase[d] the overall
usefulness of the program.” Cynthia
said, “I used the notes on ilearn and they were
helpful to me because being able to view the notes and hear you go over them
again help[ed] me to remember key points as well as help[ed] me to understand.” Stephanie stated, “I was very disappointed
that we didn’t have it for the other exams.
I would listen to the lectures and compare it to my notes. It was helpful being able to stop and rewind
and see what you had said that I had not had time to write in class.” Christopher advised, “I used it a few times,
and it was a tremendous help, but if you did not attend class that day it would
not be a sufficient replacement (but I have a feeling you like it better that
way!).” So here we have before us an
efficient and boundless resource. And
yet, is efficiency the only or most important value driving education?
In What is
Living and What is Dead in Social Democracy? Tony Judt
insists that we are plagued by a common and contemporary prejudice – “the
invocation of economics in all discussions of public affairs.” Judt insists
currently, “when we ask ourselves whether we support a proposal or initiative,
we have not asked, is it good or bad.
Instead we inquire: Is it efficient?
Would it benefit gross domestic product?
Will it contribute to growth?” Judt warns, “this propensity to avoid moral considerations
. . . to restrict ourselves to issues of profit and loss . . . is not
instinctive. It is an acquired
taste.”[6]
Neil Postman
insists that “in considering how to conduct the schooling of our young adults
we have two problems to solve.” One is
technical, a problem of means, “an engineering
problem.”[7] How is it possible to
create the same educational advantages for all individuals? While this technical question is itself
formidable, the more fundamental and difficult problem is one of defining the
value of education, or what “good” education serves. Is getting an education about attaining
economic and social advancement – making a living? Or is education about making a life? [8] According to Postman, because today’s society
has failed to supply students with adequate reasons for going to college, they
are academically disengaged. Record
numbers of today’s college freshman report feeling bored in class; they come to
class late or leave early.[9]
According to
Jacques Ellul, “there is a deep conviction that
technical problems are the only serious ones.”[10] He argues that we see this in the rejection
of the humanities and the conviction held by all social classes that we are
living in a technical age and education must relate. Hence, education has become market-driven; a
majority of today’s college students are career oriented. We hear this, I believe, in the chronic
question: “What are you going to do with that major?”
Ellul writes about the
morality imbedded in technology. He
observes it is not an immorality imbedded in technology; rather, it is an
absence of morality – amorality.
Technology, he argues, is a phenomenon blind to good and evil.[11] I am reminded by Ellul’s
comments of debates surrounding technological interventions at the end of life,
stem cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, and human reproduction. For example, although reproductive technology
has enhanced the lives of many women (and men) who thought they were unable to
have children, the Catholic Church insists that all techniques for controlling
human reproduction are wrong. Whereas
some argue that human reproductive technologies (surrogate pregnancy, sperm
donors, artificial insemination) have lead to the loss of personal values,
others question whether artificial insemination will take the love out of
reproduction and make it a purely mechanical process, and still others, that it
will promote eugenics and denigrate the worth of babies.
Indeed, Hans
Jonas insists in The Imperative of Responsibility that machines are so helpful,
so appealing, so seductive that if we are not
conscious of how we use them, when we use them, where we use them, they will
indeed drive our ethic. Jonas argues
that the human capacity to reason morally has not caught up with technological
progress. If Judt,
Postman, Ellul, and Jonas are correct, we have good
reason to be suspicious of the movement toward using more and more technology
in the classroom.
Although I
grant that ilearn, Onenote,
and Camtasia are important resources, I still
maintain they can compromise teaching and student learning. In order to see how technology can compromise
teaching and learning each of us has to ask ourselves, what are the ingredients
required to succeed as a teacher – to say that I feel successful? What definition of success am I using?
I teach
philosophy and social ethics. To the
best of my ability I want to foster knowledge and skills that will lead my
students to meaningful and successful lives.
I want them to be able to ask the big questions, to know the big
questions – to discover what questions are worth asking. I want them to be able to think deeply and,
in conversing with one another, to contribute to the human dialogue about the
purpose of life, about what is success.
In addition, I know that every single day of
every single class is a unique experience.
The class is a living breathing thing.
It is organic. Everyone in the
classroom knows this. As a result, my
instruction will need to encompass more than skills; I will need to think
deeply about character, culture, lifestyle, disposition, flexibility,
risk-taking, and empathy. Students may
go on line and view Camtasia but there is no way to
replicate what happens in the classroom.
By focusing
on efficiency or productivity, it is easy to overlook the more meaningful
problem of how might technologies function to compromise my ability to serve the
very mission that, for me, defines success in the classroom. I believe one answer is, to the extent that
technology moves my students away from “presence” they are injured, not helped. As Christopher advises, “if you did not
attend class that day, it [Camtasia] would not be a
sufficient replacement.”
Of course it
may not be technology that is the problem; rather, it could be the use that I
make of the technology that is problematic.
Although I am suspicious of the movement to use more and more technology
in the classroom, I still maintain that technology is an inevitable part of a
world that is not static. Hence, I
continue to consider new ways of implementing technology in my courses. For instance, I teach an introductory
philosophy course, Philosophy According to the Movies. The course meets once a week for four
hours. I have felt, for some time that
the things I try to do in this class do not fit together in a coherent fashion.
Generally, I
start lecture with questions, or by talking about a key question or theorist,
once a number of issues are on the table we turn to a movie and come back to
the discussion after the movie. My new,
hopefully less disjointed, format will be to use ilearn
and Camtasia to make my lectures available to the
students before class. The students will
be responsible for working their way through the reading with the help of the
online lectures. That will leave
classroom time for the movie, their questions, and discussion. If Christopher has it right and Camtasia is not a “sufficient replacement” for what goes on
in the classroom this new format shouldn’t be a problem.
Endnotes
[1]
Incidentally, 50 years ago I didn’t need technology to disengage from the
classroom day- dreaming worked
just fine.
[2] Berteaux, John. “Cost of connection.” The
[3] Richtel, Matt. “Hooded on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental
Price.” The New York Times
[4] Hafner, Katie. “Driven to Distraction, Some Unfriend Facebook.” The New York
Times
[5] Jowett, Benjamin. “The Dialogues of Plato” Encyclopedia
Britannica: Great Books. Ed. Robert
Maynard Hutchins. 52 vols. Oxford University Press, 1952. 139.
[6] Judt, Tony. “What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social
Democracy?” The
[7] Postman,
Neil. The End of Education: Redefining The Value of School. (New York: Vantage Press, 1955). 3.
[8] Postman x.
[9] Postman
4-18
[10] Ellul, Jacques. The Technological System. (Toronto: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1965). 97.
[11] Ellul 98.