Like so many fellow Americans, I am so very often tantalized by technology...
When the pressure to teach is not lurking two inches from the top of my head, it is so very easy to be tempted to try another new technology as the panacea to my teaching woes. It could be clickers, electronic textbooks, on-line problem sets, new lecture capture software, nifty electronic tablets made just to better the ordinary teacher, and so on and so forth and so on.
In retrospect, I have to wonder if I had dispensed with technology altogether from the very first, what would I have done with the extra time and would I really have been the worse for it in my teaching? I know such a thought approaches sacrilege in this society, but it is true that the student expectation for technology in the classroom has been on the rise for over two decades now, and the time invested in such technology by the teacher has climbed steadily alongside.
It is not just a matter of mere time that would be saved by the absence of electronic mail. Electronic mail is akin to water torture. It continues with its drip, drip, drip into my Inbox 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Many students expect not only that I will answer all of it but that I will answer it quickly and if I do not do so, I will be responsible for whatever was not known as a result of the failure to respond to the student. As the drip, drip, drip into the Inbox continues, however, the mail bell (notification) takes the place of concentrated, extended deep thought on such non-essential things as pondering the larger pedagogy and diagnosing student misconceptions. When did we get so obsessed with technology that answering the third rendition of "What's on the test?" from a student became more important than understanding what the student was likely to misunderstand on said test in the first place?
And web pages are not much better, akin to running the fingernails down the old fashioned chalkboard. After spending a long hard day preparing lecture notes, class activities, homework, tests, and a laundry list of other precursors to entering the classroom, I close my book, my notebook, and my eyes late in the evening, only to have them (the eyes) shoot back open again in panic. Alas, I am not finished! I must update the web pages with all this material as well. I cannot expect that students will come to class and ensure they have all necessary materials. Thus, I must run a parallel and redundant preparation program via the world wide web, in the hopes that somehow the student will find the necessary information to do what's expected in the course. Whatever happened to the student taking full responsibility, talking to friends and peers or even coming to office hours to round out his or her understanding of class logistics? Regardless, in that moment of panic and weariness, when I think all is done when it is not, the reminder to update the web pages for the expectant student sounds just like fingernails raking down an old fashioned chalkboard.
Of course, my view on technology is not one-sided. But, just like electronic mail often gets in the way of the time and focus necessary to go deeper with my conventional foundation of teaching, so does electronic mail often get in the way of using technology to improve teaching rather than to pacify students. Some technology steamrolls other technology just as it does my attention, my time, and my deeper thoughts. And no technology, however fabulous or cutting edge, is any good in my teaching if I have not invested the underlying thought and pondering necessary to structure a course to support learning rather than only liking what I teach.
Yet, in the off season, I succumb to society's fascination with technology. I begin to believe that if I only I invested the time to understand the new lecture capture software, the new clickers, the new web tool…. if only I did that, my teaching would suddenly turn a corner into a paradise of both student learning and liking. On an even better day, I'll believe that I can curb the use of electronic mail, limit the fanciness and functionality of web pages, so that I can release further time to teach, deeply, thoughtfully, and prayerfully.
Yes, right. Enough of the philosophizing and waxing the ideal. Now, where did I put that software I just bought for our next term? Where's the tutorial? Ah yes, it's all in an electronic mail here, somewhere.
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