Synthesizing Education

As the new decade begins, many people sit around predicting what will be the big changes in any number of fields and occupations. In education, the advancement of technology has become the focal point of reform and, more importantly, many people are discussing the development of critical thinking skills while using the new medium. The problem in education, however, is that budgets are annually based and there is really no way to stock-pile funds in an effort to purchase more of these new technologies when they become available. Imagine you could take your technology budget for this year, use the portion that you need for the “necessaries”, and then take the rest and put it into a high-interest, no risk savings account. Now imagine you could do this every year for the next five years until educational hand-held devices become available. You can’t.

This leaves educators with a problematic situation. If we know that the technology in our schools will be obsolete in five years, what should we be purchasing on a yearly basis that will foster student growth and develop the skills necessary to adapt to new technologies? This question has vast implications on teaching and learning in the classroom simply because it forces us to reconsider the ways in which we work with students to manipulate technology and foster critical thinking.

The first key is to understand what types of technology schools should invest in right now. The dominant amount of funding should be dedicated to developing the infrastructure (networks, servers, etc.) and bringing in more netbooks (not laptops), iTouches, and other student-centric devices. Here’s the rule: if the tool is limited to being used exclusively by the teacher (or exclusively by one person) then don’t buy it. In order for students to be engaged with technology I firmly believe that they must be manipulating it and working hands-on. It makes no sense to spend thousands of dollars on a piece of technology that only one individual can work with at any given point in time of the school day. In addition, IT managers should be concentrating on buying servers, improving network connections, enhancing wireless capabilities, and upgrading bandwidth. In order for IT managers to accomplish this, they must have the support of teachers and the understanding of my next paragraph: software.

If it isn’t web-based and free then don’t use it. For example, stop buying Microsoft Office. If Office 2010 will cost $99 per license think about the number of computers you have, multiply by the cost, and then divide by $300. That’s how many netbooks you could have bought instead of being ingrained into the Microsoft culture. With compatible platforms available like OpenOffice and GoogleDocs, there is no reason that we should forfeit buying more hardware simply so our kids can have some extra add-ins and plug-ins. Along those lines, the goal is for students to be able to go home (or anywhere else) and work on their assignments at that location. Forcing everyone to purchase MsOffice places a financial burden on families and a strain on educational funding that is unnecessary in this day and age. Please keep in mind that MsOffice is not the only situation where this exists, it is just the most visible and pronounced. Find programs that students can access and use with low-maintenance broswers (Firefox and Chrome) so that their hardware at home doesn’t become bogged down with add-ins and create frustration.

There are several cultures that we are trying to alter in this situation:

1.Further support your IT department: Constantly requesting installs of updated programs costs time and money. Imagine that they could concentrate on developing the infrastructure and focusing exclusively on hardware issues.

2.Enhance the Home-School Technology Connection: Students must be aware that they can continue their learning once they leave the building. Using programs that are expensive and not web-based prohibits this kind of extended learning.

3.Preparing for the Future: The ability of IT departments to develop the infrastructure will allow for more development and use of future web-based applications that require more and more connectivity speed. It is EXTREMELY important to have a network that is running as close to 100% of the time as possible. Understand that with purchasing more bandwidth you are not “buying faster e-mail”. You are preparing for a point in time when internet speeds replicate real-time interactions.

This is the type of integrative thinking that it will take in order for school districts to have the funds that will allow for their students to be trained on up and coming technologies. Investing in hardware and not paying for software are critical pieces. Teachers need to make a stronger effort to connect with their IT departments so that they can find other ways to improve students’ educational experience. At the same time, educators need to continue to develop social networking sites (like Tom Whitby’s PLN) so that resource sharing becomes the norm. Until we start to think critically about how we structure the educational technology in our schools for maximum efficiency we will be “spinning our wheels”.

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