An experiment

I confess myself to be a severe sceptic about the supposed glories of our modern Digital Era, and I shudder whenever I hear the currently near-ubiquitous, near-obligatory platitudes about the necessity of "digitizing the classroom" and "integrating technology" into everything we do as teachers.

I have found that when children are allowed to use computers in the classroom, they may well get into a productive 'flow' and work very efficiently (although often not), BUT this is the kind of work that could be better addressed in their own time, as 'homework'. If their computers are open, or even switched on, even switched off and closed on the desk in front of them, they are an overwhelming distraction. Hell, even still zipped up in their bags on the floor, they are a distraction. 

Kids using computers do not interact with anything or anyone around them except their screen. It is very difficult to have any useful discussion activity, whether pairs, small groups, or whole class, if computers are on the desks.

In my classes I like to have a broad range of activities - vigorous and student-centred activities. We will have group chats and brainstorming and role plays and oral presentations and improvisations and whatever-else-I-can-think-of. Very little of it silent, almost none of it solitary; and none of it simply staring at a computer screen, thank you very much... or only an absolute minimum of time.

I like to bring a broad range of stimuli into my classes: and I use a lot of video clips and music played from my laptop; but I also like to use poster art and physical objects; and, yes, good old-fashioned books. And I often encourage my students to contribute interesting discussion prompts of this kind as well. They or I will use a computer at some point in almost every class.

But not every class. And not all the time.

I saw an IT 'advocate' at a conference once show a picture (from a computer, of course) of an old school writing tablet, chalk on slate - in an attempt to deride how primitive teaching resources were a hundred years ago, and celebrate how much 'luckier' we are today. I was almost immediately struck by the many egregious advantages of the slate: never breaks down, easily shared among multiple users, much faster 'reboot' time, inexpensive, expendable, not dependent on electricity/battery or Internet connection, VERY long lifespan and almost infinitely reusable, negligible carbon footprint, etc., etc. Good grief, the very metaphorical image of the 'blank slate' conjures up ultimate creative freedom, a completely free rein for the imagination. 

Whereas, the computer (especially the goddamn Mac!) represents for me - and for the kids, too; for most of us, surely - frustration and vexation: endless freezes and crashes, inordinately slow boot-ups, neverending software updates..... and sudden, disastrous losses of data.

What I've only just realised, however, is that the computer also represents - particularly for today's youngsters who've grown up with it, and scarcely known any other way of life - ephemerality and unimportance.

My Film students all keep a 'Process Journal' blog as one of their key course requirements. It is a constant battle to chivvy them into adding regular posts to it. And it is absolutely 100% impossible to get them to read (much less comment on) any of their classmates' posts - I have tried and tried and tried, to no avail. What's more, I am quite confident that they just about never re-read anything they've posted, and hence can scarcely remember what they've posted.... and thus are probably indeed genuinely surprised and baffled when I point out their blogging delinquency to them every few weeks. (Ah, and nobody, nobody ever reads the comments I leave for them!)

I notice again and again in my English classes also that students invariably love any kind of activity that involves creating some lasting physical artifact: rudimentary props and costumes for a drama performance, storyboards for a micro-movie, 'mind-map' diagrammatic notes on a big sheet of craft paper. That stuff they'll hang on to. That stuff they'll go back and look at again, in a few weeks' or a few months' time. I've had the cork-board at the back of my classroom decorated for months with drawings my students made illustrating a favourite from the small selection of Lu Xun short stories I looked at with them early in the year. They're still occasionally looking at and commenting on these now.

A photo slideshow or a PowerPoint deck (perhaps the single most common form of assessment task set in our school) or a piece of writing online.... slips from their consciousness almost as soon as it's complete: click 'Save', click 'Send'..... and forget about it.

And so.... at the end of our last session, just before Christmas, I decided to embark on an experiment with my two English classes. One of them I've been badgering into starting a 'Book Review Blog'; and the other I'm trying to get to do similar work in an old-fashioned notebook. I'm having to set lots of required tasks at the outset, to get the ball rolling. But my hope (ah, fond hope) is that some of them may occasionally start adding items of their own volition.

The blog format should have all kinds of advantages - in making it a more collaborative experience (though I know that, much as I might encourage them, almost none of them will ever look at anybody else's posts), in giving it a consistent look-and-feel, in making it easy to use quotations or add photographs, posters, book jacket illustrations, etc.... and in making it easier for me to monitor. And I know there is likely to be even more resistance to writing longhand than writing on a computer.

But I'd be willing to bet a substantial sum of money that this summer, when they've all left this school, quite a few of those with the notebooks will look through them again. I don't think any of those in the blogging class will revisit their work.

And that's a BIG - and, as yet, almost completely unaddressed - problem in modern teaching. There's a lemming-like rush to embrace more and more new technology, to do everything on a computer, to do everything online.... because it's easy, because it's trendy, because the kids seem to like it. Not because it actually provides a valuable or enduring learning experience.