- Technology advances are a series of trial and error experiments. Edison said, "I didn't invent the light bulb, I found 2000 ways not to make it." The telegraph evolved in several places in Europe, notably France and England, after many iterations of design changes. I don't think that people use the 2nd Design Principle in developing the technology, nor in the early days of limited mechanical technology, how they were going to be mindful in its application. Back then you could try to apply the technology if you thought it might work in a certain application or not. In schools and classrooms today, the mindful application of technology is essential for teachers to keep control of their organization and effectiveness, otherwise they become encumbered by the technology. In my classes we are experimenting with students bringing their own laptops or tablets to do labs in class. In a lab we did today, the students got their data from the lab equipment and then had to open the file in a third party software program to analyze it and print it out. We don't have that program on our computers anymore and would take an act of god to get it loaded on them at this point. During the school day, I can walk down the hall faster than our network can send a message to a copier. So when students tried to download the analysis software, it would take forever. So it works out that the students can download on their home network and finish the lab at home. It gave me more time to focus on the data collection and setup of the lab and answer student questions.
- The unforeseen social implications must be managed to keep them positive. In the Victorian Internet, all the telegraphers became an online social community, and they could identify each other from their transmission styles. As part of the data collection in the lab today, students had to export their data to a USB flash drive connected to the lab equipment. About half of the students had the flash drives so people had to share the flash drives between lab groups, which turned out to be a positive, collaborative experience because everyone helped each other get their data file copied and sent to their personal email. So that was a good interaction.
- One of the generalizations made from this reading is that it speeds life up. That's good in some cases. Because I had to work with a cohort (PLC), up until 30 minutes before the class started, to make sure we were all going to do the same thing, I had no time to test the downloaded software out or make sure it will read the data file. The odds are in my favor since the lab equipment manufacturer is also the author of the software analysis tool. But I always like to check it out so I can head off any issues with the program. This builds confidence in the students and prevents potential disengagement in future labs. So the technology was mindfully chosen, but not without risk.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Post #2: The 2nd Design Principle and the Victorian Internet.
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I always laugh about Edison's comment about the light bulb. Teaching to me tends to follow the same idea. A teacher could plausibly say, "I didn't invent the perfect lesson, I found 2,000 ways not to teach one." While teaching a few years back, I was fortunate to meet a man who owned several original Edison light bulbs. After several conversations, he agreed to share them with my students. It was such a cool experience for my students to hold a piece of scientific history and compare it with the light bulbs of the present.
ReplyDeleteAfter our discussions on Wednesday, I too feel that careful consideration has to be made when selecting technology. You need to make sure what you are selecting has a purpose. Randomly selecting something without any connection to the lesson design will not benefit the students.
I like that at your grade level the students can bring in their own technology to use. I would love to try that in fourth grade. We have such a hard time with procuring laptops and tablets at our school because of the sheer amount of students. I think it would be interesting to see what could be done if everyone brought in their own devices.
As we discussed in class, having a purpose in of itself doesn't always lead to mindful consideration of the consequences of an applied technology. Students bring their own technology, but some "bleeding edge" issues about compatibility with browsers and operating systems, along with the bandwidth issues clearly demonstrate the lack of mindfulness at our location, at least. Edison was not such a good person in his later years in his dealings with Nikolai Tesla, so he is not a favorite of mine, but he was a good businessman and held his patents tightly.
ReplyDeletesecond time i'm writing this comment... i wasn't logged in so it erased the whole thing once I did log in. awesome.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the whole installation of software thing and how it takes an act of God to accomplish sometimes. In our county we are forced to install Autodesk applications and each school is responsible to do the installs. There is always a complete lack of communication between the software company, our school district IT offices, and the school itself. For a class that revolves around 'state of the art' software and hardware we sure don't verify that everything works. The funny thing is that it's easier for students to just bring in their own computer because the software they download at home works 100% of the time and ours doesn't.