There is something of a backlash against the use of technology in the classroom, and this article, “When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom,” from The Chronicle of Higher Education is one example of it.
College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled “smart” classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to “teach naked” — by which he means, sans machines.
More than anything else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather than using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web. When students reflect on their college years later in life, they’re going to remember challenging debates and talks with their professors. Lively interactions are what teaching is all about, he says, but those give-and-takes are discouraged by preset collections of slides.
Bowen makes good points. It is an interesting article with a fair amount of food for thought. For example, it is interesting, though not surprising, that in a study published in the April Issue of British Educational Research, students gave low marks to computer-assisted classroom learning activities. Nor does it surprise me that,
“The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions,” said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.
I am an advocate of teaching with technology, one might even say an evangelist. But it is not used effectively and it is for this reason that students find it boring. A great deal of the technology that is developed for pedagogical purposes is developed for individual learning and is not meant to be brought into the classroom to begin with. That is not to say it is not appropriate for a course, but it should be integrated for the purposes for which it was intended.
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The second thing to remember is that technology for technology’s sake is never the end, so technology should never be used for its own sake. Unless technology is the subject of the course such as it might be in a course on new media or something of that nature, then it is a tool and should attract no more attention than the chalk board. It should serve an end.
The one thing to always keep in mind is to put pedagogy first. Before making use of any technology or tool from a DVD player to a complex video simulation, ask yourself what it will teach students and if the technology is the most effective way to do it.. You use a specific tool for a specific purpose, so that is the rule to love by. One should never teach with blogs just to be teaching with them or with any technology simply for purposes of teaching with that technology, but rather for purposes of teaching, full stop.
Anyway, the expderiment at SMU is an interesting one. Read the full article to check it out.