Technology and Education:

A Student's Perspective

An online edition of handouts accompanying the presentation by jonathon david hawkins to the St. Norbert College Faculty Development Conference, January, 1997.

Contains material expanding upon topics discussed during presentation.

The Information Age in Our Classrooms

"Does Information Equal Education?"

One of the questions proposed for this conference is "Does more information necessarily result in more education." My answer to that question is no, it never has and the fact we now have access to greater amounts of information hasn't changed that fact.

Critical learning skills, like those at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy, are what we need to develop. This because it is not the information itself is not what is important, it is the ability to understand, process, and use the information that is the vital skill. We really need to get away from the "Three Rs" ("Remember, Reword, Regurgitate") that tend to dominate in many classrooms. With new information developing in every discipline, focusing on the simple rote memorization of facts is a losing battle, and it leads to an easily outdated education.

But the sheer mass of information that we're being given, and the way in which technology allows us to collect and organize it in new ways, can be very powerful tools in education. With the collective knowledge of mankind doubling almost annually, no library can hope to acquire it all, just as no professor or student can hope to memorize it all. But with information technology we can gain access to almost all of it if we know how to use it. But too many students and teachers don't know how to use it effectively.

Poring through the Periodical Index for hours, hoping that the library will have the journals you need, and then hoping that someone hasn't stolen, damaged, or misfiled the issues and articles that you need is antiquated and unnecessary. Yet many still rely almost solely on this method. This approach is so time consuming that the majority of time and attention is (out of necessity) paid to the process of the researching and gathering the information, the lowest cognitive functions. If we teach people how to effectively use the information technology, we can move the emphasis away from the low level function of gathering information and onto the higher level Synthesis and Evaluation.

There are many ways in which information technology can be used as too facilitate this higher level learning. Group work can be enhanced by the use of technology such as file sharing, allowing people to collaborate easily and effectively, without conflicting schedules hindering the learning process. The World Wide Web, and the programs used to access it, have value both for researching and for presentations. Mail lists, news groups, IRC (Internet Relay Chat), and email open up research possibilities that might not have been practical for students before.

Another benefit, primarily for those teaching younger children, but not to be ignored by those in higher education, is immediacy. More often than not, for children immediacy is reality. What is there now is what is real and relevant to them, leaving a deeper impression. The longer the time between the beginning of a lesson and the results of a project the lower the impact of the lesson will be. A good example of this principle is a typical Civics lesson of writing a letter to the President. If a classroom sends letters to the White House it is typically a matter of weeks (if not longer) before they are answered. However, email sent to the White House is generally answered in a matter of days. It is easy to see how it would be much easier to integrate the latter method into the classroom and be able to stimulate thoughtful conversation by its use.

  1. The State of Technology at Saint Norbert College
  2. Using the Technology
    • Caveat #1: Making it valid!
      • Utilizing the Network
      • Multimedia Presentations
    • Caveat #2: Making it easy to use!
      • Problem 1: Professors non-acceptance of its use...
      • Problem 2: An unbalanced playing field...
      • Problem 3: Fear of Technology...
  3. A Few Proposals
    • Classes
    • Standards
    • New uses of technology

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