© Chris Franek, 2013
Chris Franek returns with a word of warning to teachers about getting caught up in the speed of technological change.
In a previous post I talked about the infamous dodo bird that mysteriously became extinct in the late 17th century and how we teachers should take care not to suffer the same fate due to our occasional blind love affair with technology. It’s quite funny. My girlfriend often affectionately refers to me as a dodo. More accurately, she calls me a “dodo bird” which is somewhat confusing because I don’t know if she’s referring to an extinct bird or an idiot. I suspect both.
It got me thinking about the evolution of the meaning of the word dodo. As I mentioned in the previous blog post titled, “Is the Teacher Going the Way of the Dodo?” I talked about how the original dodo was the infamous now extinct bird that inhabited a remote island off of the eastern coast of Africa. Over time, that original definition of dodo was replaced by the more modern definition we have come to associate with the word, which as defined by Oxford English Dictionary, is “an old-fashioned, stupid, inactive, or unenlightened person”. Neither definition represents a condition any of us would want to find ourselves in – extinct or being an idiot. However, upon closer examination, I wonder if we should be careful not to quickly dismiss today’s dodo out of hand for fear of overlooking some of its hidden merits. Although our modern dodo may not have been able to save its feathered predecessor, it may paradoxically hold the clues to preventing our extinction as teachers.
I drive an older model car. It’s a car that I have had for many years now. Over the last few years, quite a few people have suggested to me that I should buy a new car. In the beginning, I felt a kind of urgency to do it but over time, I’ve started to wonder exactly why I would want a new car. I’ve always kept my car in great condition and, to be honest, I am quite fond of it. Nowadays, everyone wants to drive a new car, when in reality, an older, well-maintained used car performs the same task – getting one from point A to point B – equally effectively. Often, the argument for getting a new car can be distilled down to the notion that a new car is more effective than an old one. However, although that may be the case in some situations, I believe that in reality, most people want a new car more for the quality of “newness” rather than effectiveness, sometimes to the point of wanting one where having one isn’t even practical. If you live in New York City, for example, it makes almost no sense to have a car.
Technology is the classic case of “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. We’re obsessed with making technology the solution for every problem – sometimes to the point of seeing problems where problems don’t even exist. We claim that the motivation behind pushing technology into the classroom is that it is more effective for the modern learner but in reality, it’s often because it’s more fashionable and new. We live in a society that prizes “the new “and rejects “the old”. Newer is always championed as being better and I think nothing exemplifies this frame of mind more than our obsession with technology. The technology cycle is incredibly fast. You can get a gadget that is the latest “game changer” and within a couple of months it’s already half the distance to obsolescence and relegated to yesterday’s news pile. It’s easy to slowly and insidiously allow ourselves to be hypnotized by the siren call of technology’s manic sense of urgency. Society basically shames us into feeling we have to keep up with technology’s pace or risk being exiled to the island of irrelevance. So are we as teachers “stupid” if we do not board the technology bullet train with unquestioned zeal? Are we just being “old-fashioned” or “unenlightened” if we refuse to get with the program?
