Kimberly Wert

Tech in--and as--the Classroom

As difficult as it is to believe, access to technology is not ubiquitous. I've read so much about how wired students are--but just when I started to almost accept that as truth, it was exposed as a fallacy. Not all my students--let me say, college students--actually have computers at home. This is not shocking, but it is frustrating.

In a time when teachers are encouraged to provide electronic access, not all students have access to the technology that enables them to participate in online or electronic activities. Even having just one student in this situation throws off the most carefully planned lessons. In these cases, I have made copies of materials, scaled back or changed lessons, and at times tried to arrange for computer access during class time.

Even though I have encountered access issues, I have yet to deal with privacy breaches. Avoiding such issues takes a good deal of forethought and negotiation with students. Students want information; their identities must be protected, even from one another, to some extent. Their email is private, their student information is private, and so on. One wrong keystroke is all it would take to compromise them. Even though they may have TMI on their Facebooks pages, the universities must hold data sacrosant--with very good reason.

The dehumanization resulting from technology is complex. Students and teachers are held at some faceless, inaudible distance from one another. Yes, we're humans interacting with one another, but there is a lack of warmth in purely electronic communication, no matter how many exclamation points or emoticons are added. This is the most difficult concept to manage in an online classroom environment. The deeper personal connections are not quite there, and I'm not sure how to change that. Being present, being responsive to students--these are the methods I use, but the relationships that last after the class are still the ones that happen in classic classroom environments. This saddens me.

Technology and Behavior

Technology is not transparent. I am quite conscious of the technology around me and at my fingertips. There are days I wish it would all disappear for a few hours, but the draw of ease and instant gratification is too strong. I communicate with people much more than I used to. Email especially has made that easier; so has the cell phone. However, I truly wonder how many times I need to talk to my sister in the course of a day. I used to talk to her once a week. Is our relationship stronger? Maybe, but it was pretty strong before.

At the touch of a button, the click of a mouse, I have more information than I ever dreamt of before. This makes finding recipes and relatives easier, and I can perform scholarly research without venturing out into the rain, instead staying warm and dry inside. 

I'm going to leave out television and all that *old* stuff (and, yes, that's meant to be facetious).

Am I lazy? To some extent. Is my attention span shorter? No, actually it's not. But my patience is. I'm not always happy to have to wait for information--and neither are my students. At least I understand that about them.  

Research?

Yes, of course. I love to ask my students what technology they use and how they use it. They always impress me. I wish they actually were impressed with themselves. I would love to help them leverage technology in the classroom to help them enhance their critical thinking and writing skills. This is what my primary research concerns are--and there are many more on the way.

As a GenXer, I'm supposed to be comfortable with various technologies, using multiple tools at the same time. I suppose that I truly am comfortable with technology, generally speaking, but I admit that I came to tech late, and even at times reluctantly.

Home, of course, was where I was first exposed to technology. I couldn't avoid it, actually. My grandparents owned an electronics repair shop, so TVs, stereos, and microwaves (when the good ol' nuke machines were finally made) were easily accessible. Although TV and radio were arguably significantly influential in my llife, what I remember most clearly is my first car. New Jersey state law is that you can't drive until you're 17. Given that my birthday is in September, I was the last one among my friends to get my license, thanks to my age. Even when I turned 17, I got my license but not a car. In fact, I wasn't able to get a car until I was 20--yup, 2-0. I ended up with my mom's old car--a beat-up Pontiac with no AC. Even so, it was a dream. I finally, finally didn't have to rely on other people to give me a ride. I had the freedom to go any where, any time (not that I had any money for gas, but still). That car represented my adulthood to me. I later sold that car so that I could move out of my mom's house, so it was really like the gift that kept on giving, moving me steadily into life on my own.

My experiences with technology in school were welcomed with less enthusiasm. This little story will truly show my age. When I graduated from college, the Mac toasters were around, but they were too pricey for my family. So when I headed for college, I took my typewriter with me. Now understand that I hated that typewriter--mostly because I couldn't type well at all. At the time, though, I disliked computers more. My only experience with computers was a BASIC programming course, which did NOT go well. Imagine my astonishment and disgust when my English professor told me the first day of class that all my papers had to be word processed on a computer. I was not a happy camper. The computers in the college's computer lab were lackluster and often died while users were in the middle of typing their papers. Nonetheless, I perservered and even came to like computers. Ironically, despite my awful BASIC experience, I went on to become a webmaster and also to use computers proficiently in my work. Go figure. And thanks, Dr. Greenfield, wherever you are.

Ahh, new experiences. They're good, bad, and downright ugly, all wrapped into one package.

More to come...