Teaching and Learning: What does Technology Have to Do with It?

[I like the perspective on "technology" and education, and it sounds like an interesting training/workshop opportunity. -Lee Nickles]

Teaching and Learning: What does Technology Have to Do with It?

Ray Schroeder
Director, Office of Technology-Enhanced Learning
Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Springfield

When most people think about teaching and learning, they conjure up images of classroom engagement between student and faculty member using a black or white board; reading books; taking notes on paper; and typing papers. Each of these images involves technologies: blackboards; whiteboards; books; pen and paper; typewriter or computer. Technology tools have always been a part of the teaching and learning process. From pre-history to today, they are integral to the way in which humans store information and help to build knowledge.

From drawings on cave walls to cuneiform tablets, the leaps in technology afforded significant benefits. Cavemen (and women) drew and scratched on cave walls, in part to illustrate concepts and techniques. Those cave walls were not "mobile" technologies. As civilization evolved, "mobile-learning" technologies came about. I can only suppose that the clay cuneiform tablets dating back six millennia were used by Sumerians to teach and learn. But, those tablets certainly must have been awkward, heavy, and required time for the clay to dry (or be fired for a more permanent record). Over time, the clay cuneiform tablets were replaced by the equivalent of the iPod — the new technology of papyrus, which was much lighter and on which the ink dried instantly. Later, there were erasable wax tablets followed by a continuous stream of ever-evolving, ever-improving technologies.

Imagine the burden on the teachers of shifting from clay to papyrus; from papyrus to wax. A busy teacher would hardly have the time to learn how to best use the new technology and what advantages it afforded to students. Becoming facile with the stylus was hard enough, but then having to learn to use a pen was just over the top! And, building the infrastructure to supply the ink and replacement pens, let alone sheaves of papyrus must have seemed insurmountable!

From the very beginnings of civilization, technology has had a central communication role in facilitating information transfer and knowledge-building. Certainly, this is no more true than today. We are confronted with an accelerating array of new technologies. Many of these provide significant enhancements to information exchange, retention of data, and the building of knowledge. And the same is true with the new technologies of today.

The challenge remains in finding ways to most efficiently teach technology to the teachers so that they can best use these new technologies to do their work better. Just as we teach our students in groups — thereby drawing upon the collective wisdom and the range of questions of the diverse group of learners — there are advantages to teaching the teachers in groups. The diversity of the group can create a fertile ground to grow broader and deeper understandings of how the technologies might best be used. That is the principle underlying our approach to Sloan-C workshops. Learning together, we will build greater knowledge and support networks as we move beyond the cuneiform to Web 2.0.

(Join Sloan-C in our online workshop- Technology Bootcamp – February 6 to March 7. Burks Oakley II and Ray Schroeder of the University of Illinois and John Bourne of Sloan-C will host.)

Source: Sloan-C electronic newsletter, Volume 7 Issue 1 - January 2008, ISSN 1541-2806

The Sloan-C View is published by Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C™). Responsibility for the contents rests with the authors and not with Sloan-C™. Copyright ©2007 by Sloan-C™.