"Can we have it all?"
Jason Ohler
Abstract: Considerations about the use of technology in education should be guided not only by the question"How?" but also by the question, "Why?" The mantra for our use of technology in the schools should be "to motivate teachers and students to use today’s tools effectively, creatively, and wisely to understand the past and prepare for the future." All too often the emphasis is primarily on effectiveness, only secondarily on creativity, and almost never on wisdom. All too often the emphasis is on the future and not the past. Part of the educational technology experience should focus on teaching students how to assess the impact of technology, personally, socially, and environmentally. If we can do that, we can have it all: exciting new learning tools which amplify our intelligence and creativity, and which are used within a reflective context which emphasizes not just innovation and productivity, but also self in relation to community.
Each of us wants the fruits of an inherently contradictory life, a fact that is amplified by our technology. We want the right to express ourselves as individuals, as well as the safety and stability of community that comes through conformity. We want to invest in complex technological infrastructures in order to regain the simple pleasures of life. When our luxuries become necessities, we see deprivation where we used to see overkill. Dehumanization occurs when people are both denied and subjected to technology. In short, we want technology on our terms, while submitting to it whenever it offers us something that will make our lives or the lives of those close to us more meaningful, manageable, or comfortable. It is hard to imagine that there was ever a time when a new technology didn't have it detractors. I would love to have been present when the first knife-using humanoids slipped and cut their hands on their new tool. No doubt there was some expression of the sentiment "damn knife!", a feeling that was certainly forgotten as they set about skinning the latest animal carcass.
A black-white view of technology is obviously useless. People are complex, so our technologies are complex. Nostalgia -- an irrational longing for limitations you would resent if they were imposed -- has no practical solution. Where would we draw the line: with the radio? The printing press? The wheel? To speak in terms of being against machines in our educational systems, while simultaneously exhorting our children to become fully actualized, imaginative, sensitive human beings in charge of their own destiny, is an oxymoron. Even the Amish do not reject technology. Instead, they think about technology, which is exactly what we should teach our students to do. The Amish weigh the pros and cons of a new technology, largely based on its impact on that elusive concept of "community," and then decide whether or not to adopt it. Even within the Amish lifestyle there are many different approaches to technological adoption because different Amish communities inflect the meaning of community in different ways. Rheingold's article about the adoption of the cell phone by one Amish community is quite instructive in this regard ("Look Who’s Talking").
The point is this: we need to think about what we are doing. We need to view technology not as "stuff" but as lifestyle choice requiring all the consideration we employ when we think about how we want to eat, exercise, practice medicine, make cars, use energy, and so on. The simple approach is to say "no" to technology. I prefer to trust people--given the right information, and a culture of consideration, we can have it all.
