K Bechtel

I have finished the book by Papert, and I am glad to be finished with it.  Although he made some great points throughout the book, I felt like he was totally bashing school without offering any real solution.  Yes, he provided excellent examples of learning opportunties from his own personal experiences to those of real students, but I just don’t think these are examples of the ultimate learning process.  I think learning really is a personal issue in that each student brings with them unique talents and interests and preferred ways of learning.  That’s one reason why teaching a classroom of kids is so hard.  We ( I mean teachers) classify every lesson as one size fits all, and obviously that is absurd.  I do believe many of the things that are done in the classroom are motivated by state and national guidelines and assessment data.  Papert was right when he said that much of what we learn is not on the state assessment. 

One of the most important points Papert made in the whole book in my opinion was on p. 123 when he said, ” Knowing that one can exercise choice in shaping and reshaping one’s intellectual identity may be the most empowering idea one can ever achieve.”  This is something not understood by my students nor their parents.  In a recent blog by Clarence Fisher, he talks about how important it is to give students the opportunity to be in charge or at least part of the what students learn and how they learn it.  He says, They (students) must become evaluators and creators of information; active and critical consumers and collectors, but the fact is that they need the opportunities to do these things and in classrooms, they aren’t often given. I think this is one route to the mega-change Papert speaks about. 

After reading this chapter, I think of the word authentic.  How many authentic reasons do we give our students to learn?  Are students learning things that interest them?  Why is it that Johnny never turns in any of his work?  I think Johnny needs to see a real reason in knowing whatever it is I want him to learn.  I think of my own children, 5 and nearly 2 years old, and how many minutes they will sit in front of a video game.  I have argued with my husband about this because I see it as such a waste of time.  He sees it a challenging learning experience.  It drives them to want to learn more and more.  It’s pretty amazing to see.  Imagine having students in your classroom with this same kind of drive.

One interesting point in this chapter that I must mention is the fact that the author says technology can support mega-change in schools by shucking off the technical nature of School learning.  Learning is a natural occurrence, but it isn’t described as such at school.  The very thing that could help bring about change in school is turned into another interference.  When he describes in this chapter about how taking the computers out of classrooms and putting them into a lab with a curriculum did the students no good, I have seen that in other areas of school as well.  We have many resources that we miss the purpose of and end up losing their benefit on student learning.  He really made some interesting points.

After reading Chapter 2 and several occasions in which the author described some of his own learning experiences, I began to think about some of my own experiences.  I remember in 4th grade thinking how much fun school was.  Up to that point, I don’t think I knew that school could be fun.  My teacher in 4th grade though taught me that learning doesn’t have to be something that happens in your seat in front of a textbook.  We had many opportunities to learn that year and many learning moments in my mind were just plain accidents.  I really felt like I was just playing most of that year.  After that year though, learning meant sitting in my seat and receiving the knowledge the teacher would allow me to have.  And just like a deposit in the bank, once I had learned it, I moved on to a new topic.  I didn’t use it.  I didn’t really know I was supposed to.

The next time I really remember a learning moment was in high school in a Calculus class.  The teacher really was hard but that meant he really made me think.  Up to that point, thinking at school was minimal.  School was more like a script.  The teacher talked for a while and then I regurgitated what he or she said on some kind of paper or worksheet.  My Calculus teacher though changed that.  He answered my questions with another question.  “Why was he so mean?” I would think to myself.  Why can’t he just tell me the answer or tell me how to get it right?  Well getting it right was not his concern at all.  He was more driven to teach me to think about the problem and possible solutions than just getting it right.

College classes also gave me thinking experiences.  Although I had taken Calculus in high school, I really didn’t feel like I could do it.  I took Algebra as my first math course in college, and finally developed a moment of real understanding.  I had taken Algebra as a freshman in high school and here I was taking it again in college, but I was so glad I did.  I finally got it!  I could not only do the problems but I understood why I was doing them that way.  I have always appreciated that moment.

So for me learning has meant 2 very different and independent things.  At times it has meant doing something and getting it right.  That would be the school definition of learning.  However, a few teachers out there have not cared if I got it right or not.  They wanted to see evidence of my thinking skills.  So I ask myself, am I asking students to do things to get the right answer?  When was the last time I asked them to think?  Do we expect students to really think?  I don’t think I really want to know the answers to these questions. 

Throughout this chapter I kept trying to classify myself as either a schooler or a yearner.  I so badly want to be totally yearner, but the truth is I’m a hypocritical mesh of both.  What I say I believe comes from the yearner perspective, however what I actually do looks a lot like a schooler.  I say I take a constructivist approach to learning in my classroom, but I am explicit in my directions to students on what they should learn each day.  I believe change can help make bad situations better, but I know change is sometimes difficult and do not embrace it.  I say I do not want my students to simply be consumers of education, however, I teach as if that is what they are.  When I am unable to be at school, I want a substitute that can do all the new methods utilized and use the  technological toys in my classroom and I think this will be difficult to find someone to maintain the amount of normalcy in my absence.  It isn’t.  Retired teachers to brand new ones can pull off what I do without a hitch.  And to think I thought I was different….

I remember my first year of teaching.  I went in to that definitely believing I was a Yearner.  In fact, I was not only going to change my classroom and school, I was going to change the whole world.  I remember thinking of things I would not do as a classroom teacher.  Now 9 years later, where is that ideology?  Reality has made me see that school wasn’t  that bad.  I mean look at me.   I turned out ok, didn’t I?  I truly have never seen anything other than school work so it is hard for me to picture the flip side of it.

Is it though just a flip side?  Can teachers take on this approach or another?  It is actually deeper than that.  When you think of change, schools experience it all the time, so we say.  We have school improvement plans that do things better for this next class of students.  We have school-wide and district-wide initiatives that change how we’ve been doing things.  But do these things actually change anything?  When it comes down to it, teachers fill their classrooms and do what they want to do, what they are comfortable doing. 

So Papert has written an excellent first chapter.  He’s got me hooked.  I so want to learn how to change what I do to allow students to learn better.  I want to fly!

Educational settings can do many things do address the issues found in the article Silicon Ceilings: Information Technology Equity, the Digital Divide and the Gender Gap among Information Technology Professionalsby Andrea M Matwyshhn.  This article describes how the digital divide among men and women is prevalent and growing not only in terms of access to consumers of information technology but also in terms of access to producers of information technology.  The following list gives suggestions as to what schools can do to close this gap:

• instruction and exposure to information technology at an early age (prior to junior high and high school)
• employ more women as computer educators to act as role models to girls
• stimulate more girls to take computer science classes by developing a curriculum that pays attention to the different learning styles
• employ tech savvy teachers that will expose students to technology use in the classroom
• educate girls on the possible work related jobs in the area of computer science
• use single-sex schools or classrooms where socially constructed stereotypes can be broken and girls can have equal access and time to use computers; this also promotes girls having positive attitudes towards computer science
• train teachers to be aware of group processes and dynamics and how these may impact girls
• provide networks for females to connect with each other
• use a hands-on approach to the technology curriculum
• get parents involved
• personally invite girls to take technology classes
• offer additional lab time for students to practice
• create partnerships between high schools, community colleges, and businesses that would support internships and certification programs

These are suggestions that would address the gender issues surrounding technology equity in educational settings.

The effect of technology on a culture can clearly be seen when looking at the young people of that culture.  What we do, how we do it, and how we communicate is greatly impacted by technology.  Danah Boyd described technology has being fluid with the youth she studied.  I guess I would compare technology has being a rocky hillside to many of the adults in our culture!  As she said in her interview, teens do not see technology like IM as an interruption.  On the other hand, a phone call would be seen as such.  For example, my niece is much more apt to talk with her friends on the computer rather than by phone, unless of course she is texting them!  Conversely, she only contacts me by phone (cause she knows that’s how I can be reached!)  Likewise look at all the businesses, like coffee houses and restaurants, making access available to their customers.  People are always available today (and want to be) via technology.

Another analogy Ms. Boyd gave in the interview that really speaks to where we as a culture are heading is how as children, our parents would send us out to play with instructions to return home by dark.  I would go play with all the neighbor kids around my block and as I got older, I could hang out as far as two or three blocks away from home.  Parents today do not do that anymore out of fear.  The equivalent to kids going to hang out after school is the social networking sites.  Teens and even younger kids go “hang out” in places such as My Space and Facebook with their group of friends.    Of course adults go hang at these places as well, but their intended audience was college kids and that has trickled down to teenagers and younger kids.  Like the Hula Hoop when most kids could do it better than their parents, I think the social networking sites like My Space are used more easily by kids.

So my future, being directed by those youngsters that fill the seats in my classroom today, will bring new ways of doing a whole lot of things.  Communication, entertainment, education, job opportunities, and medicine will be greatly influenced by technology…technology we don’t even know about yet.  We technology natives must learn to embrace it rather than resist it.

Digital technology certainly improves the level of equity in so many different aspects.  First of all, technology completely removes any or all barriers to accessing people and places that can complement any student’s learning experience.  For example, when studying a unit on the solar system, students can talk to a real live astronaut.  When doing math homework at home, students can access live help with any number of math help sites.  When learning to speak another language, students can partner up with another student whose native language is the same one they are studying.  This goes back to the discussion we had about the “thin walled classrooms”.  Technology is making the world smaller and in turn, making students think about their own being as part of a global society.  Education is no longer what happens in our classrooms, but is provided and readily available to anyone at anytime.  That is anyone with access.  Which brings me to how technology hampers the level of equity.

The digital divide can be explained in two parts:  those with access and those without as well as opportunities provided via technology that create or impede the learning process.  Let’s first look at those without access.  This certainly hampers the level of equity.  Students without access at home certainly cannot take advantage of opportunities afforded to them if they had access.  They would not be part of that educational network and their learning would be confined to the classroom.  I would also mention schools that do not have access here, but research shows that nearly 99% of all schools are wired for technology access (http://www.ericdigests.org/2005-2/reflection.html).    So that point is irrelevant, unless we widen our discussion to education outside of the U.S. 

Now let’s look at those missed opportunities.  I’m talking about resources here, and yes, I’m including teachers.  Students in classrooms with technological savvy teachers are at an advantage over students of teachers that use very little or no technology as part of their instructional methods.  They are seeing technology in use, have access to it, made aware of the capabilities, and lowering their inhibitions with technology use.  These teachers are considered to be in the reaffirmation or rejection stage of technology adoption according to L. Sherry (http://thejournal.com/articles/14594).   Now I didn’t say their achievement level was higher or lower than students in a classroom that uses little or no technology.   I’m not really sure if there is research to support either of these judgements.  However, students in the low technology use classrooms are not seeing the benefits of technology, the opportunities created with technology, or improving their own skills at using technology.  Teachers in those classrooms are considered to be in the learning or adopting stage of development.  Two classes next door to each other could be providing their students vastly different educational opportunities depending solely on the level of technology experience knowledge of the teachers.  Thus the divide continues.  This may or may not be due to factors outside the control of the student.  Students in both classes may have the same levels of diversity in terms of gender, race, background, language, etc. but the differences in educational opportunities provided by information and communication technologies is determined by the comfort level and experience with technology of the teacher.  Which classroom would you want your child to be in?

When we think about the lack of technology adoption among different groups of people, you should be reminded of the groups own experience with technology.  Technology is not used among people for many different reasons including low motivation because they see no benefit from doing so, lack of interest, lack of affordability, lack of knowledge and experience with technology, insecure and uncomfortable about the uses of technology, and lack of support (http://www.rockresearch.com/success_pubart_ntrs.php).  Many of these reasons among adults for not using technology could be avoided if students are in classrooms where technology is being used.

There are several important factors to consider when assessing educational equity.  Those factors include the social context, the economic context, the political context, and the educational reform context.  Let’s consider each of these factors individually and their implications on the assessment of equity.

Social Context-How does the community perceive the role of the school?  There are two vastly different views on the purpose of a school.  Some may believe that schools are the few, if not only places where all are created equal.  With hard work and a good attitude, a school can help make your dreams a reality.  Equal opportunities exist for all.  More importantly, the school is the provider of knowledge and skills to make anyone a positive contributor to our society.  Remember, we are operating under the law of “No Child Left Behind”.  On the other hand, some may see schools as a control agent that reflects the social inequities that already exist in our communities.  The idea of a track system comes to mind, where we allow some students to take a college prep line-up of courses, others take a general track of courses, and then some make up the vocational track.  It is in this system that students are predestined to a particular group or class in our society.  Knowing which perception the community has on a school will help guide an assessment’s data collection and interpretations.

Economic Context-How are schools funded?  Kentucky is a state that has been in the forefront across the country in school reform.  One of the issues with this school reform is school funding.  The SEEK formula was designed to make school funding equitable across the state.  So why is that some schools are still under-resourced and others are fully resourced?  According to the author, the disparities found in income among races and gender parallels the differences found in the type of access and technology services provided to students in these same groups.  I found the same type of disparity in research conducted to see the difference in technology use and adoption among whites, African Americans, and Latinos (http://www.rockresearch.com/success_pubart_ntrs.php).  Therefore, researchers must take this relationship between school funding and student achievement into account when assessing programs or services.

Political Context-Why are some personal attributes advantageous for some and barriers for others?  Who makes the decisions in your community that promotes giving some people an opportunity while others are never regarded?  I think of the age old question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”  Do political, social, and economic inequities among diverse populations cause similar inequities in schools or do the inequities found in schools feed the gaps that already exist in our communities?  Researchers must look at the political influence in a community that would encourage or impede technology use in the school.  This political influence could encourage the use of technology, but at the same time, give certain populations of students an advantage over others, e.g., students with access at home to students with no home access.

Educational Reform Context-Where does information and communication technologies fit into the school reform effort?  These technologies can support the curriculum, teaching methods, collaboration, school organization and management, communications, and assessment.  These type of changes trickle down from national, state, district, and classroom levels.  Researchers must look at how these changes from school reform happen at each of these different levels.  A look at how these technologies are incorporated (or not) into the school reform plan should also be considered when assessing equity.

I think one of the main implications on education of The Law of Fives is the fact that being connected to one another is so unique, so powerful, and so rewarding.  This is a comment that I’ve read over the past few weeks on other’s blogs and seems to be the theme so far for the course.  I must admit I wasn’t a believer of this prior to the readings and discussions we’ve had, actually I really had never thought about the awesome potential of a network.  It certainly seems to me that networking is here and now and the future.  For educators, networking is another tool to use in the classroom.  I used to think of networking in terms of teachers talking to get new ideas and become better teachers.  Now I think of networking and think of students becoming better students.  When I say better, I mean smarter, global, and connected.  Networking changes your perspective.  In the article, he wrote “my wellness becomes a quality of my network.”  Will my education also become a product of my network?  On the down side though, I think the Mob Rules can negatively impact educational equity.  The Mob is considered this large group of people, but what about those not included in this number.  How will they have a fair chance to compete with the mob? 

Is equity possible?   I suppose in a perfect world equity is possible.  In my earlier post, I suggested that equity is synonymous with fairness.  So to change the question around a bit, is fairness possible.  I have been told, “Life isn’t fair,” and I may even be guilty of telling others that same line a time or two.  I think at some point in time everyone has felt like they have been treated unfairly by someone.  So I really don’t believe equity is possible.

Is equity desireable?  Certainly.  I think everyone wants to be treated fairly and is entitled to that.  However, what I believe to be fair and what you believe to be fair may or may not be in alignment.  This is why I believe the issue of equity is subjective not objective. 

How does equity relate to NCLB?  I think the mere name of this law implies that at some time in the past there have been children left, dropped, or ignored by our educational system.  I also believe that it implies it’s not the majority of children.  If it were the majority of children being left behind, the name of the law would be different.  It means to me that one child failing is too many.  One novice performance is one too many.  So equity is what NCLB is about.  Regardless of your gender, race, ethnic background, disability, or free or reduced lunch status, you will have the opportunity to gain an education that is fair in terms of access, instruction, assessment, materials, and attitudes.  For example, a sub-group we look at closely at my school are students with disabilities.  This isn’t the majority of my students but a small percentage.  We are working to make the curriculum more accessible to this group of students given their needs to they can be successful in learning it.