Our topic is the use of technology in the classroom. Please know I'm no Luddite. After all... I'm typing on a computer to post on a blog... I believe there is an important place for technology. In some ways it has made our lives better. But I also believe it has created more problems - often having unintended consequences.
Prof. Schaap and I are going to ask questions about the use of technology in the classroom... Does PowerPoint really make lectures more exciting? Do students really take better notes... learn better... with a laptop in the class? Well... no and no - that's what I say. Edward Tufte, who has written extensively on PowerPoint, argues that PowerPoint is badly abused to the point it becomes tyrannical. Instead of promoting the asking of probing questions... or the freedom for lectures and discussions to move freely in and out of topics - the bullet points take us captive - mindlessly moving us from one slide to the next. As I read somewhere... making boring and meaningless information dance doesn't make it any less boring or meaningless.
With regard to laptops in the classroom... give me a break. Most students are checking email or doing Facebook. Professors are the worst... just come and sit in on a faculty assembly sometime. Do you really think that many Prof's are furiously taking notes on the breakdown of the budget or whether we should use red or brown rocks in the parking lot?
Living in my ideal world - I believe the classroom (as well as the church sanctuary for that matter) should be a space where people unplug. Where we gather together to encounter each other... to ask questions of each other. To grapple with ideas and arguments. A place where Prof's aren't just the button pushers of magical slides... but a place where Prof's ask questions, allow themselves to be challenged, get off topic, engage arguments. We are not just dispensers of information... we stick wrenches in the gears... we poke and prod... sometimes getting poked in the eye.
This is what our discussion will be on Wednesday morning. How do we teach in a way that affirms the positive contributions of technology - but also in a way that challenges the myth of technicism and the idols we create?
We'll see what happens... check out this youtube link to see a video we're going to watch and discuss together...
4 comments:
I couldn't agree more. Powerpoint as it's used today too closely resembles television, which we absorb unquestioningly. Our minds have learned to process visually without much effort.
Auditory processing requires more brain power, and when the potential for conversation or dialogue exists, we're kicking on all gears.
I'd love to hear how the discussion on it goes and what many of the professors think. Thanks for posting!
I agree with most everything you said, though sometimes I like to have my laptop with me because I have the Logos Software on it, plus I can type faster than I can write. Good luck!
The church sanctuary as a place to unplug... it's a great idea for the ideal world. Silence. Space. Room to listen. To sing. To confess. To hear the voice... of God.
But technology is part of the sanctuary -- printed page, amplification, pews (padded or unpadded, chairs or benches) are all technology.
The challenge is to use technology for the things it does well, leaving space for human beings to be... human... in the presence of God.
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