TITLE: The Real Technological Revolution in the Classroom Hasn't Happened Yet AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford DATE: September 16, 2011 4:13 PM DESC: ----- BODY: Earlier this month, the New York Times ran a long article exploring the topic of technology in K-12 classrooms, in particular the lack of evidence that the mad rush to create the "classroom of future" is having any effect on student learning. Standardized test scores are stagnant in most places, and in schools showing improvements, research has not been able to separate the effect of using technology from the effect of extra teacher training. We should not be surprised. It is unlikely that simply using a new technology will have any effect on student learning. If we teach the same way and have students do the same things, then we should expect student learning to be about the same whether they are writing on paper, using a typewriter, or typing on a computer keyboard. There are certainly some very cool things one can do with, say, Keynote, and I think having those features available can augment a student's experience. But I doubt that those features can have a substantial effect on learning. Technology is like a small booster rocket for students who are already learning a lot and like training wheels for those who are not. As I read that article, one fact screamed out at me. Computers are being used in classrooms everywhere for almost everything. Everything, that is, except the one thing that makes them useful at all: computer programming. After reading the Times piece, Clive Thompson pulled the critical question out of it and asked, What can computers teach that textbooks and paper can't? Mark Guzdial has written thoughtfully on this topic in the past as well. Thompson offers two answers: teaching complexity and seeing patterns, (His third answer is a meta-answer, more effective communication between teacher and student.) We can improve both teaching complexity and seeing patterns by using the right software, but -- thankfully! -- Thompson points out that we can do even better if we teach kids even a little computer programming. Writing a little code is a great vehicle for exploring a complex problem and trying to create and communicate understanding. Using or writing a program to visualize data and relationships among them is, too. Of course, I don't have hard evidence for these claims, either. But it is human nature to want to tinker, to hack, to create. If I am going to go out on a limb without data, I'd rather do it with students creating tools that help them understand their world than with students mostly consuming media using canned tools. And I'm convinced that we can expand our students' minds more effectively by showing them how to program than by teaching most of what we teach in K-12. Programming can be tedious, like many learning tasks, and students need to learn how to work through tedium to deeper understanding. But programming offers rewards in a way and on a scale that, say, the odd problems at the end of a chapter in an algebra textbook can never do by themselves. Mark Surman wrote a very nice blog entry this week, Mozilla as teacher, expressing a corporate vision for educating the web-using public that puts technology in context:
... people who make stuff on the internet are better creators and better online citizens if they know at least a little bit about the web's basic building blocks.
As I've written before, we do future teachers, journalists, artists, filmmakers, scientists, citizens, and curious kids a disservice if we do not teach them a little bit of code. Without this knowledge, they face unnecessary limits on their ability to write, create, and think. They deserve the ability to tinker, to hack, to trick out their digital worlds. The rest of us often benefit when they do, because some of things they create make all of our lives better. (And increasingly, the digital world intersects with the physical world in surprising ways!) I will go a step further than Surman's claim. I think that people who create and who are engaged with the world they inhabit have an opportunity to better citizens, period. They will be more able, more willing participants in civic life when they understand more clearly their connections to and dependence on the wider society around them. By giving them the tools they need to think more deeply and to create more broadly, education can enable them to participate in the economy of the world and improve all our lots. I don't know if K-12 standardized test scores would get better if we taught more students programming, but I do think there would be benefits. As I often am, I am drawn back to the vision Alan Kay has for education. We can use technology -- computers -- to teach different content in different ways, but ultimately it all comes back to new and better ways to think in a new medium. Until we make the choice to cross over into that new land, we can spend all the money we want on technology in the classroom and not change much at all. -----