For ISTE 2014 in Atlanta, I will be presenting on the “Myths of Technology and Learning”. As I am really thinking about what I will be sharing at the conference, I wanted to write a series of blog posts that will help myself and others “rethink” some of these statements or arguments that you hear in relation to technology in school. I will be writing a series of blog posts on different myths, and will be posting them on this page. I hope to generate discussion on these topics to further my own learning in this area and appreciate any comments you have on each idea shared.
“As the Internet has become more central in our lives, we have begun to witness a revival of the importance of being human.” Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant
One of my favourite books that I have read in the past few years was called “Humanize”, and it really helped me to think of technology in a much different way than I had in the past. As an assistant principal years ago, I remember actually arguing against the use of technology because of the way that I had seen it used. Students would often go to a lab, which became an event, and teachers would often have students interact with websites or programs, instead of people. I watched kids focused on a screen and losing connections with one another. If I continuously talked about the importance of relationships in schools, it didn’t make much senses to talk about technology this way.
When I became a principal however, Twitter started becoming all the rage amongst educators, although I never really understood it. Once I started connecting and sharing with real people, I was hooked. Not only were these people brilliant educators, but they were great people that I connected with. I learned not about their philosophies and thoughts on education, but about their families, their likes, their interests, and who they were as people. I don’t come back to Twitter for the technology but for the connection. If you build relationships in any area of your life, online or offline, you are going to come back. Relationships are built with people and the people are what brought me back. The ability to show one’s self was the draw for me.
Although I was proud of all that my school was achieving, while also sharing my own thoughts on education, I decided to show other aspects of my life as well. People saw through the sharing of my love of basketball, music, and humour, that I was not just a “principal”, but a person who happened to be a principal. But it was not only the “good” times that I shared. When I lost my first dog Kobe, or went through another stressful time in my life, and even lost my dad, I felt that the Internet cried with me and gave me a virtual hug. People came together to help me through trying times, many that would be considered “strangers”. My willingness to share myself made me more than an avatar, but a human being. This past weekend when I got engaged to the girl of my dreams, I got another giant virtual hug. Because I have been willing to share my ups and downs, I have been able to connect with so many people that I would consider good friends.
I have experienced this, but I have also seen these stories over and over again online. John Berlin, made a video asking Facebook for his deceased son’s “Look Back” video, and when it was picked up by a Reddit user, people shared and reshared the video, which quickly caught the attention of Facebook and led to the video being released.
There is more good than bad in the world and the Internet has given us the opportunity to really tap into one another as human beings.
As a school administrator, I think often about the opportunity social media gives us to connect in ways that we couldn’t before. If you look at large school districts such as Peel District School Board in Ontario and Surrey Schools in British Columbia, they have made their world a lot smaller by their use of social media. In large geographical areas, they have used social media to create a “small town” feeling within their communities. Although you might see their leaders only once in person within the school, you have the ability to connect with them often online. It is all in the way that you are willing to use the technology.
If a school leader uses social media as a way to simply share messages, and not engage with their community, it will not be very beneficial and does not create much more than existed without the technology. Recently, I saw my good friend Jimmy Casas (who I met in person first but have become very good friends with because of technology) share a post about being vulnerable. In it, Jimmy shared an anonymous tweet that was targeted against his work as a principal:
Jimmy could have simply ignored it and moved on, but instead showed his vulnerability and addressed it openly. That is courageous leadership. The ability to openly share and discuss a criticism in a space that is totally open. The irony of the post is that technology was used in an anonymous way from someone who was not willing to be brave enough to address Jimmy in person. If you think about it, people dehumanize one another, not technology. We have to always remember that on the other end of that Twitter, YouTube, Facebook account is a person, and when we choose to use technology in such a manner, we do more harm than any social media account ever could.
I often hear people talk about losing special things such as handwritten cards because we are often focused on teaching technology to our kids. There is something sweet and sentimental about a card, but then I think about the video my brother shared of my dad below:
I wouldn’t trade seeing my dad in this video for any handwritten card that he could have ever written. His humanness shows here and I am reminded of his loving, goofy, and caring heart even though he is not with us anymore.
If you think about it, this type of technology can makes us even more human than we were before, it’s simply on the way we choose to use it.
“One of the reasons social media has grown so fast is that it taps into what we, as human beings, naturally love and need and want to do—create, share, connect, relate.”
Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant
