The Beginning of the End?

An interesting idea has been floating in the back of our minds this week, based on three separate incidents, two of which came our way via Google Reader and RSS feeds (something we point out, only because we are preparing a small presentation on Google Apps for teachers and administrators on Wednesday, something we'll talk about shortly), and the third based on a chance encounter earlier this month.

The first bit of news was that Amazon is set to offer a student edition of their Kindle reader, to tap into the growing demand for digital textbooks. Having dealt with some of the possibilities inherent in placing digital versions of texts in the hands of teachers and students, we believe that increasing the availability of digital textbooks will ultimately increase the number of teachers and students who take advantage of the manipulative and impermanent nature of digital text and use to craft more engaging, interactive learning experiences.

The other bit of news came from TechDirt, in which they mused about letters to the editor, and in fact the whole process of hard-copy letter writing in the digital age. One of the interesting aspects of the article was an excerpt from Vice Magazine in which the magazine complains about the lack of letters they receive, as compared to earlier in the magazine's history (presumably before email became commonplace). One of the oft-echoed complaints about "correspondence" in the Internet Age is that it does not translate into action, and in fact, masks a kind of passive consumption of media (as if it were somehow greater than the passive consumption of television). During the past year of writing this blog, we have yet to hear any feedback online. We are, both here and at The Daily Wenzel, to write our blogs in the middle of an actual geographically based community and often encounter people on the street who offer their comments. For the record, The Daily Wenzel, publishing since 2006, has received perhaps a dozen comments in that time, chief of which was a hard-hitting critique of their interpretation of philosopher Paul Virilio (see, Virilio vs. Facebook).

The last piece of the puzzle stems from an encounter with a pair of much older teachers who firmly endorsed the criticism's mentioned above. Modern technology, they offered, created isolated individuals - a point that we would agree with, though we were surprised at our surprise at watching them make entries in their paper dayplanners.

How will these teachers relate to students who arrive to their classes to with their Kindles and their iPhones looking to compose assignmnets online and then email them to their teachers?

The problem, as we see it, is partly as follows. If students are embracing digital technology to the extent that within five-to-ten years high school and college students will exist in world that is comprised almost exclusively of digital resources and digital communication, to purposely exclude oneself from this world is dangerous and, one might say, irresponsible. Yes, reliance on modern technology, as with anything, requires balance and guidance, part of what the teaching profession is meant to offer to students. Teachers need begin their engagement with students at the place where the students are, and then begin to move them towards a desire destination (hopefully arrived at through a combination of student goals, teacher goals, and government regulations). The teacher that stands imperiously at the front of the class demanding students to be at a particular location, claiming perhaps that they are holding the line on "standards", is facing a very hard uphill battle.

Many industries are facing difficulties in dealing with workplace cultures that span generations ranging from the so-called "Greatest Generation" of the Depression and the Baby Boomers, to Generation X and the Millenials. Unfortunately, it seems that in education, the stakes are higher.