The Rise of the Machines: The Dangers and Promises of Technology in the Classroom

A good friend of mine has a mother who has, for over forty years, been a classroom teacher, mostly in private, Christian schools.  Recently, she and I had a conversation about her cellular phone upgrade.  She said that her phone provider (along with her children) was vigorously encouraging her to purchase either an iPhone or an Android.  In asking about how I liked my iPhone, I told her that it had phenomenal capabilities, most of which I would probably never realize and access.  Technology, after all, is much like a foreign language, which is partly why the younger generation seems to adapt to it so easily while older generations, mine included, seem to a bit more clumsy (Yelland, 2006).  The young still have their language acquisition device (Clark, 2009).  My daughter, three years old, literally has to show me how to use certain iPhone apps!

Since we are both classroom educators, the conversation naturally turned to the implications of technology in the classroom.  Though she was mystified and impressed with the iPhone’s “siri” application (the digital private assistant that can perform a number of tasks – Internet searches, scheduling, placing calls, finding directions, etc. – by simple voice commands), she expressed concerns that the technology was “dumbing down” current generations (and would do so to future generations, probably at a more astonishing rate).  She, of course, is not alone in her fears.  Bauerlein (2008) has built an entire career off of presaging doomsday scenarios that arise from the stupefying effects of technology on the young.  He certainly makes a number of valid points: the Web “produces an appetite for familiar items easily consumed” but does not “produce deeper understanding and heightened curiosity”; social media demeans human relationships; youth, who engage in such extensive texting and “Facebooking” are loosing the ability to communicate verbally (Bauerlein, 2012, p. 6).

I would agree that each of these dangers exist.  They are not, however, formal dangers inherent only in technology.  Indeed, in the wrong hands and without proper guidance, technology could facilitate any number of social ills…but so could printed media (e.g., pornography, hate literature, etc.).  Effective educators have always insisted that technology should not and can not be a substitute for a teacher (Hooper & Rieber, 1995).  Armed with technology as a platform for the dissemination of content (but not the content itself), teachers can enhance the value of human relationships, steering students not just to exchanges with classmates, boyfriend/girlfriends, and teammates, but with peers in Europe, Africa, and Asia.  Rather than allowing technology to impede the use of verbal communication, certain applications (like Dragon Dictation) can simultaneously teach students how to write and speak.  Rather than allow technology to package information merely in easily consumable bites, teachers can guide students to locations and repositories of digitized documents that they would never have visited or read otherwise.

When the assembly line was becoming a mainstay of American manufacturing, some feared that this innovation heralded the death of the skilled craftsman and their guilds.  The assembly line, they warned, was dehumanizing (Linhart, 1981).  Some may argue that dehumanization is precisely what took place.  Others would argue, however, that the assembly line increased the potential for productivity and permitted intellectual and creative efforts to be diverted elsewhere.  I imagine that there is truth in both arguments.  Similarly, technology represents real potential threats to education, but the promises and potentialities cannot be denied either.  With great power comes great responsibility, and shouldn’t teachers teach responsibility?

References

Bauerlein, M. (2012, Summer). Connectivity issues. The Wilson Quarterly, 36(3), 6.

Bauerlein, M. (2008). The dumbest generation: How the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes our future (or, don’t trust anyone under 30). New York, NY: Penguin.

Clark, E.V. (2008). First language acquisition (2^nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Hooper, S., & Rieber, L.P. (1995). Teaching with technology. In A. C. Ornstein (Ed.), Teaching: Theory into practice, pp. 154-170.  Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Linhart, R. (1981). The assembly line. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

Yelland, N. (2009). Shift to the future: Rethinking learning with new technologies in education. New York, NY: Routledge.