Technology in Education: In Response to Selfe
I enjoyed this article because it focused heavily on secondary education, which is of course half of my world and occupies many of my thoughts this year as I struggle to survive my first year. After taking a course on literacy and a course on technological pedagogy last semester, and after working for a while in a low-income school that recently experienced an influx of technology due to a federal grant, and of course after teaching 106 in our new media group, I have developed a number of opinions about technology's place in instruction, which of course I will vent here. 
Selfe references frequently the tendency of teachers to "use" technology instead of "thinking about it." These teachers -- I've seen it at the middle school -- engage in a very techno-centric (because that should be a word) approach to technology in their classrooms. That is to say, their curricula are technology-centered instead of student-centered, and technology is used "for the sake of technology" instead of for the sake of the students. In these cases, technology is not perceived as a form of literacy. Students continue to think of "being literate" as "being able to read and write," and teachers continue to reinforce this by "using technology" to read books (audio texts) and write essays (essay-grading software... these are infiltrating schools right now).
This narrow view of technology as no more than a "tool" for social mobility frightens me. As I noted earlier, I work at a low-income school in a low-income neighborhood with students from underprivileged homes. These students don't need to use technology, they need to think about technology! As Selfe notes, our standards and expectations for teachers do not require teachers or students to "think critically about such use" of technology -- they simply require it exist as "a tool" for other "actual" literacy skill building, which only perpetuates the constant social merry-go-round.
Alright... my husband is saying it's time for dinner. More on this in class, I'm sure
- ehoman's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
I'm always hesitant to call teachers names
I'm always hesitant to call teachers names such as techno-centric or techno-phobic because I think a lot of times the blame for the incorrect or lack of use of computers and technology in the classroom is incorrectly placed on teachers. Notice, for example, in the list of funding samples that Selfe provides only one explicitly mentions training...and then look at the amount!
"$30/student (State) for "purchasing electronic textbooks or technological
equipment.. ., training educational personnel directly involved in student
learning,. ..access to technological equipment."
Take our own cases as an example. At Purdue we are being encouraged to use Drupal sites in our ENGL 106 classes. However, if it wasn't for Samantha's tutorial last week and our own messing around with the sites, we would still be waiting for the two Drupal tutorials that were promised us (one marked as required) last December!
I'm all for using technology in the classroom, but I'd like the proper training I need to go with it. I'm not about to incorporate something into my curriculum and teach it to my students that I don't feel comfortable using myself.