Guest Speaker- Liz Kolb

So, first, let me just say that Liz was an absolutely wonderful speaker, and I think her insights on teaching with technology in classroom are particularly useful, especially given the role which she played as the ad-hoc IT department for her local school back in the early aughts, when such a thing really didn't exist.  I am a self-identifying mobile device nerd, and so I was very interested to hear her thoughts about the use of such devices in an academic setting, and I have to say I was not disappointed.

One of the concerns that instantly comes to mind when I think of using mobile devices (or really any student-owned device) in the classroom for educational purposes is less about students messing around on their phones (twitter and Facebook are usually blocked, and, lets be honest, if it wasn't their phone, it was going to be something else.), but rather I was more concerned about the technical back-end of ensuring that whatever activity I was doing, everybody would be able to participate, and do so at roughly the same speed.  These days we are fortunately reaching a point in smartphone (or information phone, as I have heard them called) performance is "good enough" to accomplish most basic tasks in roughly the same amount of time (browsing the web, sending an SMS, pulling in email, etc.) However, even among these basic tasks, there are little idiosyncrasies which are nothing about nothing on their own, but which represent a vast minefield of potential problems if they are being relied upon.  What browser do they use? Does it work in one and not the other? Does it work in one version of said browser and not the other? Is the device too old to upgrade to a version that does work?  Does one phone have a tweak which wreaks havoc on school WiFi connectivity, while another student's phone runs like a dream?

I guess the long and short of this is that I don't want to be an IT department for my class each and every time we have to whip these things out.  On top of that, because most schools have building wide policies restricting use of mobile devices unless specifically invited in by the teacher, there is the problem to consider wherein students could be bringing their device into the building only for my class.  For me, (after I get done with the fun, shiny 'oooh look at that 60 fps opening animation' phase,) technology is fundamentally about "scratching an itch" or solving a problem. As of right now, I have not seen a burning problem which persistent or consistent, routinized use of a mobile device in the classroom solves for me.

Now, granted, this comes with the caveat that I am currently in a district where the technology is up to date and readily available.  If the ONLY access to a reliable internet connection was through a mobile device, or if school machines were simply too antiquated to perform the tasks I needed, that would be "problem" enough.  But as it is, in my situation, I think that mobile devices in the classroom are still a solution in search of a problem.

The tech found in my placement: A less horrible experience than I anticipated.

So this topic actually touches on a hobby of mine- armchair critiquing of technology implementations in large institutions!  I have had a couple of diet pepsis and a coffee as I write this, so this journey could get real interesting real quick.  Let's see where this goes.

To kick things off, it should be noted that my placement actually has a vast array of technology available for both students and staff, and, with the exception of the Promethean boards (I have never really been sold on the value-add of those over a simple projector screen- I mean sure, you could have students experience the pain and frustration of using 90's ATM touch-screens while trying to teach historical concepts, but why would you?) But anyway, I digress.  With the exception of the boards-which-shall-not-be-named, the technology in my placement seems to all have a purpose, and be reasonably well supported by the district IT department.  As a district, we use Google Apps (google hosted email, google docs, sheets, presentations and calendar), which means that for the most part, email and other things function as expected.  For staff, we have pretty much full access to the web, including YouTube, which has proved indispensable to my mentor teacher on numerous occasions.  Twitter and Facebook are not supported (i.e. they're blocked) , but hey Google+ works just fine, so, well, there you go,  When it comes to the students, I have noted that their email is, while still Google Apps, hosted on a different domain (.net vs. .org), and has additional restrictions, such as YouTube blocking.  When it comes to students working with computers, I have found that, while plentiful, computer access is not terribly convenient on a day-to-day basis, requiring teachers to plan ahead and sign out either a Chromebook cart, the library, one of the Windows-based computer labs, or the single Chromebook lab.  As a result, while there is a lot of tech in the school, the day to day usage is mostly restricted to teachers, and using smart boards for instruction.

In the end, while the attitude of tech acceptance is encouraging, I can't help but feel that to a certain extent "technology" is simply the latest buzz-word, and a way for schools to remind everyone that they are relevant and keeping up with the times.  If so, this enthusiasm for technology will eventually fade (but not disappear), eventually simply becoming an unremarkable part of everyday classroom instruction, rather than a separate topic unto itself.  And, as much of a tech fan as I am, I think that can only be a good thing.