Neil Postman was an American critic, educator, and a humanist. Most known for his book Amusing ourselves to Death, Postman always debated the value of technology in human life. Being a humanist, he firmly believed that the advances made in technology could never replace human values.

Although the speech reproduced here was delivered 11 years ago in 1998 to a gathering of theologians and religious leaders in Colorado, it raises concerns that are valid even today.

…The human dilemma is as it has always been, and it is a delusion to believe that the technological changes of our era have rendered irrelevant the wisdom of the ages and the sages.

Nonetheless, having said this, I know perfectly well that because we do live in a technological age, we have some special problems that Jesus, Hillel, Socrates, and Micah did not and could not speak of. I do not have the wisdom to say what we ought to do about such problems, and so my contribution must confine itself to some things we need to know in order to address the problems. I call my talk Five things we need to know about technological change. I base these ideas on my thirty years of studying the history of technological change but I do not think these are academic or esoteric ideas. They are to the sort of things everyone who is concerned with cultural stability and balance should know and I offer them to you in the hope that you will find them useful in thinking about the effects of technology on religious faith.

First idea
The first idea is that all technological change is a trade-off. I like to call it a Faustian bargain. Technology giveth and technology taketh away. This means that for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. The disadvantage may exceed in importance the advantage, or the advantage may well be worth the cost. Now, this may seem to be a rather obvious idea, but you would be surprised at how many people believe that new technologies are unmixed blessings. You need only think of the enthusiasms with which most people approach their understanding of computers. Ask anyone who knows something about computers to talk about them, and you will find that they will, unabashedly and relentlessly, extol the wonders of computers. You will also find that in most cases they will completely neglect to mention any of the liabilities of computers. This is a dangerous imbalance, since the greater the wonders of a technology, the greater will be its negative consequences.

Think of the automobile, which for all of its obvious advantages, has poisoned our air, choked our cities, and degraded the beauty of our natural landscape. Or you might reflect on the paradox of medical technology which brings wondrous cures but is, at the same time, a demonstrable cause of certain diseases and disabilities, and has played a significant role in reducing the diagnostic skills of physicians. It is also well to recall that for all of the intellectual and social benefits provided by the printing press, its costs were equally monumental. The printing press gave the Western world prose, but it made poetry into an exotic and elitist form of communication. It gave us inductive science, but it reduced religious sensibility to a form of fanciful superstition. Printing gave us the modern conception of nationhood, but in so doing turned patriotism into a sordid if not lethal emotion. We might even say that the printing of the Bible in vernacular languages introduced the impression that God was an Englishman or a German or a Frenchman – that is to say, printing reduced God to the dimensions of a local potentate.

Perhaps the best way I can express this idea is to say that the question, “What will a new technology do?” is no more important than the question, “What will a new technology undo?” Indeed, the latter question is more important, precisely because it is asked so infrequently. One might say, then, that a sophisticated perspective on technological change includes one’s being skeptical of Utopian and Messianic visions drawn by those who have no sense of history or of the precarious balances on which culture depends. In fact, if it were up to me, I would forbid anyone from talking about the new information technologies unless the person can demonstrate that he or she knows something about the social and psychic effects of the alphabet, the mechanical clock, the printing press, and telegraphy. In other words, knows something about the costs of great technologies.

Idea Number One, then, is that culture always pays a price for technology.

Second idea
This leads to the second idea, which is that the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population. This means that every new technology benefits some and harms others. There are even some who are not affected at all. Consider again the case of the printing press in the 16th century, of which Martin Luther said it was “God’s highest and extremest act of grace, whereby the business of the gospel is driven forward.” By placing the word of God on every Christian’s kitchen table, the mass-produced book undermined the authority of the church hierarchy, and hastened the breakup of the Holy Roman See. The Protestants of that time cheered this development. The Catholics were enraged and distraught. Since I am a Jew, had I lived at that time, I probably wouldn’t have given a damn one way or another, since it would make no difference whether a pogrom was inspired by Martin Luther or Pope Leo X. Some gain, some lose, a few remain as they were.

Let us take as another example, television, although here I should add at once that in the case of television there are very few indeed who are not affected in one way or another. In America, where television has taken hold more deeply than anywhere else, there are many people who find it a blessing, not least those who have achieved high-paying, gratifying careers in television as executives, technicians, directors, newscasters and entertainers. On the other hand, and in the long run, television may bring an end to the careers of school teachers since school was an invention of the printing press and must stand or fall on the issue of how much importance the printed word will have in the future. There is no chance, of course, that television will go away but school teachers who are enthusiastic about its presence always call to my mind an image of some turn-of-the-century blacksmith who not only is singing the praises of the automobile but who also believes that his business will be enhanced by it. We know now that his business was not enhanced by it; it was rendered obsolete by it, as perhaps an intelligent blacksmith would have known.

The questions, then, that are never far from the mind of a person who is knowledgeable about technological change are these: Who specifically benefits from the development of a new technology? Which groups, what type of person, what kind of industry will be favored? And, of course, which groups of people will thereby be harmed?

These questions should certainly be on our minds when we think about computer technology. There is no doubt that the computer has been and will continue to be advantageous to large-scale organizations like the military or airline companies or banks or tax collecting institutions. And it is equally clear that the computer is now indispensable to high-level researchers in physics and other natural sciences. But to what extent has computer technology been an advantage to the masses of people? To steel workers, vegetable store owners, automobile mechanics, musicians, bakers, bricklayers, dentists, yes, theologians, and most of the rest into whose lives the computer now intrudes? These people have had their private matters made more accessible to powerful institutions. They are more easily tracked and controlled; they are subjected to more examinations, and are increasingly mystified by the decisions made about them. They are more than ever reduced to mere numerical objects. They are being buried by junk mail. They are easy targets for advertising agencies and political institutions.

In a word, these people are losers in the great computer revolution. The winners, which include among others computer companies, multi-national corporations and the nation state, will, of course, encourage the losers to be enthusiastic about computer technology. That is the way of winners, and so in the beginning they told the losers that with personal computers the average person can balance a checkbook more neatly, keep better track of recipes, and make more logical shopping lists. Then they told them that computers will make it possible to vote at home, shop at home, get all the entertainment they wish at home, and thus make community life unnecessary. And now, of course, the winners speak constantly of the Age of Information, always implying that the more information we have, the better we will be in solving significant problems – not only personal ones but large-scale social problems, as well. But how true is this? If there are children starving in the world – and there are – it is not because of insufficient information. We have known for a long time how to produce enough food to feed every child on the planet. How is it that we let so many of them starve? If there is violence on our streets, it is not because we have insufficient information. If women are abused, if divorce and pornography and mental illness are increasing, none of it has anything to do with insufficient information. I dare say it is because something else is missing, and I don’t think I have to tell this audience what it is. Who knows? This age of information may turn out to be a curse if we are blinded by it so that we cannot see truly where our problems lie. That is why it is always necessary for us to ask of those who speak enthusiastically of computer technology, why do you do this? What interests do you represent? To whom are you hoping to give power? From whom will you be withholding power?

I do not mean to attribute unsavory, let alone sinister motives to anyone. I say only that since technology favors some people and harms others, these are questions that must always be asked. And so, that there are always winners and losers in technological change is the second idea.

Third idea
Here is the third. Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas. These ideas are often hidden from our view because they are of a somewhat abstract nature. But this should not be taken to mean that they do not have practical consequences.

Perhaps you are familiar with the old adage that says: To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We may extend that truism: To a person with a pencil, everything looks like a sentence. To a person with a TV camera, everything looks like an image. To a person with a computer, everything looks like data. I do not think we need to take these aphorisms literally. But what they call to our attention is that every technology has a prejudice. Like language itself, it predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments. In a culture without writing, human memory is of the greatest importance, as are the proverbs, sayings and songs which contain the accumulated oral wisdom of centuries. That is why Solomon was thought to be the wisest of men. In Kings I we are told he knew 3,000 proverbs. But in a culture with writing, such feats of memory are considered a waste of time, and proverbs are merely irrelevant fancies. The writing person favors logical organization and systematic analysis, not proverbs. The telegraphic person values speed, not introspection. The television person values immediacy, not history. And computer people, what shall we say of them? Perhaps we can say that the computer person values information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom. Indeed, in the computer age, the concept of wisdom may vanish altogether.

The third idea, then, is that every technology has a philosophy which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards. This idea is the sum and substance of what the great Catholic prophet, Marshall McLuhan meant when he coined the famous sentence, “The medium is the message.”

Fourth idea
Here is the fourth idea: Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. I can explain this best by an analogy. What happens if we place a drop of red dye into a beaker of clear water? Do we have clear water plus a spot of red dye? Obviously not. We have a new coloration to every molecule of water. That is what I mean by ecological change. A new medium does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe. After television, America was not America plus television. Television gave a new coloration to every political campaign, to every home, to every school, to every church, to every industry, and so on.

That is why we must be cautious about technological innovation. The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely irreversible. That is also why we must be suspicious of capitalists. Capitalists are by definition not only personal risk takers but, more to the point, cultural risk takers. The most creative and daring of them hope to exploit new technologies to the fullest, and do not much care what traditions are overthrown in the process or whether or not a culture is prepared to function without such traditions. Capitalists are, in a word, radicals. In America, our most significant radicals have always been capitalists – men like Bell, Edison, Ford, Carnegie, Sarnoff, Goldwyn. These men obliterated the 19th century, and created the 20th, which is why it is a mystery to me that capitalists are thought to be conservative. Perhaps it is because they are inclined to wear dark suits and grey ties.

I trust you understand that in saying all this, I am making no argument for socialism. I say only that capitalists need to be carefully watched and disciplined. To be sure, they talk of family, marriage, piety, and honor but if allowed to exploit new technology to its fullest economic potential, they may undo the institutions that make such ideas possible. And here I might just give two examples of this point, taken from the American encounter with technology. The first concerns education. Who, we may ask, has had the greatest impact on American education in this century? If you are thinking of John Dewey or any other education philosopher, I must say you are quite wrong. The greatest impact has been made by quiet men in grey suits in a suburb of New York City called Princeton, New Jersey. There, they developed and promoted the technology known as the standardized test, such as IQ tests, the SATs and the GREs. Their tests redefined what we mean by learning, and have resulted in our reorganizing the curriculum to accommodate the tests.

A second example concerns our politics. It is clear by now that the people who have had the most radical effect on American politics in our time are not political ideologues or student protesters with long hair and copies of Karl Marx under their arms. The radicals who have changed the nature of politics in America are entrepreneurs in dark suits and grey ties who manage the large television industry in America. They did not mean to turn political discourse into a form of entertainment. They did not mean to make it impossible for an overweight person to run for high political office. They did not mean to reduce political campaigning to a 30-second TV commercial. All they were trying to do is to make television into a vast and unsleeping money machine. That they destroyed substantive political discourse in the process does not concern them.

Fifth idea
I come now to the fifth and final idea, which is that media tend to become mythic. I use this word in the sense in which it was used by the French literary critic, Roland Barthes. He used the word “myth” to refer to a common tendency to think of our technological creations as if they were God-given, as if they were a part of the natural order of things. I have on occasion asked my students if they know when the alphabet was invented. The question astonishes them. It is as if I asked them when clouds and trees were invented. The alphabet, they believe, was not something that was invented. It just is. It is this way with many products of human culture but with none more consistently than technology. Cars, planes, TV, movies, newspapers – they have achieved mythic status because they are perceived as gifts of nature, not as artifacts produced in a specific political and historical context.

When a technology become mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control. If you should propose to the average American that television broadcasting should not begin until 5 PM and should cease at 11 PM, or propose that there should be no television commercials, he will think the idea ridiculous. But not because he disagrees with your cultural agenda. He will think it ridiculous because he assumes you are proposing that something in nature be changed; as if you are suggesting that the sun should rise at 10 AM instead of at 6.

Whenever I think about the capacity of technology to become mythic, I call to mind the remark made by Pope John Paul II. He said, “Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.”

What I am saying is that our enthusiasm for technology can turn into a form of idolatry and our belief in its beneficence can be a false absolute. The best way to view technology is as a strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God’s plan but a product of human creativity and hubris, and that its capacity for good or evil rests entirely on human awareness of what it does for us and to us.

Conclusion
And so, these are my five ideas about technological change. First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price. Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners. Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not. The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on. Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates. And fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us.

If we had more time, I could supply some additional important things about technological change but I will stand by these for the moment, and will close with this thought. In the past, we experienced technological change in the manner of sleep-walkers. Our unspoken slogan has been “technology über alles,” and we have been willing to shape our lives to fit the requirements of technology, not the requirements of culture. This is a form of stupidity, especially in an age of vast technological change. We need to proceed with our eyes wide open so that we many use technology rather than be used by it.

In the world of education, the emergence of Wikipedia – an online, user generated, knowledge production referencing system – has drawn strong battle lines. The divide is fairly well drawn between those who swear by Wikipedia and those who swear at it. On the one hand are the students and teachers (more students than teachers) who look upon the democratic modes of knowledge production, the easy access to information, and the multiple perspectives that get embedded in the global system of producing knowledge, as one of the most revolutionary moments in the history of teaching and research in the world. On the other hand are the teachers and students (more teachers than students) who grow green in the face, pointing out the errors and problems within Wikipedia, often layering their objections with much more complex problems of plagiarism, lack of research ethics and absence of rigour.

Especially in classrooms, where students often bring in information retrieved from Wikipedia to cope and engage with their curricula, there seems to be a strained sense of tension where the students are increasingly depending upon Wikipedia (or other such user generated knowledge production spaces) for their first introductions to different knowledges, and the teachers, used to the sacredness of books and library based research, feel a sense of despair at the click-copy-paste cultures that the students bring to the classrooms. This tension between the students and the teachers, and the concern over authenticity and accuracy, is symptomatic of a much larger changing relationship between students and teachers within academia in emerging information societies.

While it is possible to, almost infinitely, perpetuate these debates, there is a certain transformative moment which is being lost in the cacophony that emerges from both the sides trying to prove their points, and often delving into pointless, albeit intelligent, chatter. It is this moment that I am interested in articulating, because it captures, for me, a change in the learning-teaching environments in classrooms that is not very clearly articulated in the Wikipedia (or at a much larger level, Internet) and education debates.

The classroom, across cultures and geographies has been marked by a romantic imagination of being a hallowed space of elevated learning and knowledge. While this is indeed true, it is necessary to place the classroom in another more pragmatic context of Knowledge production industries and services. While there are often certain intangible and affective bonds of faith between the teacher and the students, it is necessary to remind ourselves that the classroom is essentially a site of knowledge industries, where certain information, knowledge and skills are transferred from the teacher – who serves as the access point to relevant data – to the students who need to be trained and taught into becoming possessors of knowledge.

And it is this particular relationship that the Internet technologies are changing – this hitherto accepted role of the teacher as the bearer of knowledge and the student as a recipient of the same. I want to look at three particular ways in which Wikipedia and other similar spaces have challenged our understanding of the classroom and the teacher-student relationship in the traditional classrooms.

Wikipedia, which is at the centre of the debates, is actually more demonstrative of this changing knowledge structure because of its contours as well as the larger aesthetics and politics it embodies. In the world of Wikipedia, there are no hierarchies of knowledge dependent upon personal credentials or antecedents. All contributors, are, instead, sorted on the basis of their skill for research, writing, and providing evidence. More often than not, an article on Wikipedia is a collaborative effort which plays on the strengths of many different collaborators. Each contributor is not expected to be a proficient scholar with all the required skills. Instead, different contributors take on different roles and help in producing collaborative knowledge. Such a system of knowledge production challenges the dominant understanding of knowledge production and contribution, especially in the school and university set-ups, which are contingent upon individual genius and comprehensive skills.

A space like Wikipedia thus, produces not only a level field of learning, collaborating and sharing knowledge, which is often at logger-heads with the classrooms as we know them, it also leads to a new flow of knowledge. In traditional classroom conditions, the teacher is envisioned as an expert and the flow of information is meant to be one-way, imitating a broadcast model that earlier technologies like print and cinema have embraced. With Wikipedia, there is a shift from education to learning. Everybody on Wikipedia is imagined to be a valuable person who pools his/her skills into a common database, from which knowledge is now produced and perfected. This dismantling of the teacher figure, the placing of the teacher in a condition of learning rather than teaching is the source of much anxiety that internet technologies bring forth. The recognition that the experiences, the skills, and the information that the students have are equally, if not more valuable, in the process of knowledge production and dissemination, is a significant shift in our understanding of the classroom.

The last point that I want to touch upon is the way in which the accepted role of curricula is challenged with the emergence of such easy access to different knowledge systems. For younger users of technology, who are being exposed to alternative voices, politics of dissent and a wider horizon of theory and practice, the prescribed curriculum becomes often restrictive and sometimes redundant. Because information is now easily available, the premium is on knowledge – abilities to analyze, sift, research and thinking through questions – thus changing the role of teachers, especially in schools. Many teachers are often faced with situations where the students have more information at their finger tips than is in the text-book or indeed, is available to the teacher around a particular area. In such instances, new forms of coping with curriculum, novel ways of understanding classroom pedagogies, and creative ways of incorporating the students’ experiences and information in the teaching practices need to be developed.

There is no denying the fact that the emergence of internet technologies are leading to different crises in the classrooms. However, instead of formulating it in binaries – virtual classroom versus physical classroom, Wikipedia versus Encyclopaedia Britannica, Information versus Knowledge, etc. – it is more fruitful to examine the ways in which these technologies are helping us revisit the classroom as one of the most crucial sites of the knowledge industries, and questioning many concepts and ideas that we had taken for granted in our existing education and teaching systems.

The author is the Director – Research at The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. He is currently working with the Networked Higher Education Initiative on a project on technology and education on networked campuses in India. He can be reached at itsnishant@gmail.com.

One wonders what Bob Dylan had in mind when he wrote and sang, “The times they are a changin”, back in 1963. Whatever he was thinking, he probably wasn’t thinking of schools. But those words may not be out of context for the young men and women of this generation who are seeing radical changes they had never imagined taking place in schools today.

When we look at our own country, we see schools mushrooming everywhere, each one claiming to provide the best education, each vying to attract the new age parent. Phrases like ‘student friendly’, and ‘child centric’ have almost become passé. Where teachers were once revered and believed to be the ‘know all’, today, they are being called ‘facilitators’, and in some ways rightly so. The legendary cane that some of us remember from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has all but disappeared! And last but not the least, technology has entered our schools in a big way.

Some criticisms
By technology, we mean a whole array of gadgets, equipment and software generally classified as ‘Information and Communication Technologies’ (ICT). Before we go into the mammoth subject of technology and education, let us first understand some of the main points that detractors have traditionally put forth criticizing the use of technology in school education.

Lack of basic learning skills
Some people argue that the advent of technology is perhaps distracting students too much, and moving them away from some of the very basic learning that one is expected to gain in schools. However, we must note that we are certainly not talking of one in place of the other, but an optimal mix of the two.

Social isolation
One other point in this regard is that increased use of technology apparently leads to social isolation among school going children. This no doubt seems true. We see our own kids glued to their computers at home rather than playing with their friends outside, as we had done in our younger days. It can be argued though that technology, if used well by adults, could actually be a powerful medium to promote the acquisition of social skills.

There are other criticisms, including the issue of cost and rapid obsolescence of technologies, but most would fall in the realm of technology, rather than education. In any case, whatever may be the barrage of arguments put forth against the use of technology, it is an undeniable fact that technology has, and will continue to enter and impact our daily lives. And thus, it has probably become inevitable that technology also enter schools and the education space. Rather than worrying about its possible ill effects, it would probably be wiser to look at what this means, and how it could be prudently utilized to give our children the best education.

Understanding the issue
Firstly, let us all be clear about what we are discussing. In a very broad sense, we would need to understand two distinct, yet interdependent aspects. They are –

• Technology in education
• Technology education

Of course, there maybe several other areas such as management, administration, networking and image building that are impacted by technology, but we shall restrict the scope of this essay to the above two alone.

Technology in education
From language labs to digital boards, we are now seeing technology impact our traditional classrooms in a big way. Though there are arguments on both sides, we would tend to think that there certainly are aspects of the teaching – learning process that can be positively impacted by technology. From the use of real time illustrations and photographs, to videos and digital quizzes, technology certainly has huge benefits for the student. However, before we jump on to the bandwagon and bring these tools into our schools and classrooms, it may be prudent for decision-makers to be aware of several issues.

The first and foremost would be the mindset of the teaching community. It is after all quite easy to think that if we could all learn the way we did, what is the need for technology today? Coupled with that is the lack of basic technology skills among a majority of teachers. Many schools are aware of this, and diligently put their teachers through technology education programmes. We believe that this would be a little short sighted, and possibly not all that effective. What is probably needed is a concerted effort towards continuous professional development of in-service teachers. We need to enable our teachers to see the larger picture, acquire a more holistic view of education and its goals, and within it, appreciate the need to embrace the use of technology in the teaching-learning practices. This, one can argue, could possibly lead us to see the light, as well as enable teachers to effectively use technology, only where it is needed. For even if there is adequate content, it is often seen that teachers are simply unaware of the process of technology integration; about where and how to optimally integrate technology tools to aid the teaching process.

Another issue could be the lack of relevant, authentic and good quality content. On a larger scale, this would need focussed effort on the part of educationists to join hands with their technology counterparts, and create content, rather than just adopt what the West has produced. And this certainly seems possible with the kind of technological advancement that India has experienced in the last two decades. At the school level this will also need decision-makers to be sensitive to the content they are using, and possibly only acquire that which will really be useful for the students, rather than bringing in technology aids just because they are expected to.

Technology education
While there are several arguments for and against technology in education, we find that technology education per se, is hardly given any thought when compared with the so called ‘core subjects’. The assumption that students are already exposed to technology (which is mostly a desktop PC) at their homes, and hence will learn by themselves, will not hold water for too long. For it can be argued that no amount of exposure can ever be as effective as formal learning. And for the same reasons, it is becoming imperative that students are put through formal and good quality technology education.
More importantly, we need to understand that technology education simply cannot be restricted to the use of computers and gadgets, to learning to work on some software and so on. The explosion of information in today’s world has made it absolutely essential that our children be taught the potential dangers of technology too. We don’t just need tech-smart kids, but citizens who can use technology responsibly and ethically.

Finally, it is equally important that kids be taught the ‘why’ and not just the ‘how’. To quote a simple example, while a student may know how to change the font size or colour, it is more important that the student be aware of how the change in the font size and colour will affect the readability and overall appeal of the document. To sum up, we need to not just teach children technology skills, but also need to make them capable users of technology.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that technology has entered and will continue to impact schools and education in a big way. While we attempt to continue giving the best education to our kids, it is important to understand they will be the future. Hence, it may be crucial for us to understand many aspects that maybe significant while educating the 21st century learner, including technology.

EZ Vidya is an educational services provider based at Chennai. EZ Vidya works with over 200 schools and several corporate bodies, in promoting 21st Century skills and innovative learning among students and educators. You can contact EZ Vidya at ez@ezvidya.com.

Josh Cohen

When Tom Barrett, a 4th grade teacher in Nottinghamshire, England, wanted to spice up a math lesson on probability, he didn’t turn to his department colleagues or a professional organization. Instead, he looked to the micro-blogging tool Twitter. Before class, he sent out a message to his followers on Twitter, asking them to report the chance of snow that day in their area. Barrett received answers from more than 20 people by the time the lesson started, with more rolling in during class.

The responses came from Australia, Scotland, Korea, the U.S., and elsewhere, providing a variety of probability data to work with. As a bonus, many of the responses used regional phrases (such as “buckley’s mate” from an Australian, meaning “no chance”) that Barrett employed as an opening to talk to his students about vocabulary and geography.

“I was delighted to use this networking technology in this way and it was great to finally execute what I had long conceived to be possible in my head,” Barrett wrote on his blog, ICT in the Classroom. “The lesson was so much richer for the carefully planned introduction of Twitter responses.”

Barrett is not alone. A growing number of teachers are using Twitter – the oft-derided social networking platform on which participants share text dispatches of no more than 140 characters – to connect with colleagues from around the world and generate ideas for teaching and professional growth.

Better than Google?
“At its simplest level Twitter is a resource for sharing things quickly,” says Bill Ferriter, a 6th grade social studies teacher at Salem Middle School in Raleigh, N.C., and author of the popular blog The Tempered Radical. “I follow teachers who teach similar grade levels or teachers who have similar interests as I do. I follow some middle school teachers, [some] ed tech folks.”

Ferriter says Twitter has become a regular part of his planning process. “Twitter has become the first source I turn to when I’m doing research because I’m seeing links from sources I trust. It provides a professional network of colleagues all over the globe that I can reach out to when I’m considering developing [new curriculum ideas].”

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, a former teacher and administrator turned digital-learning consultant, contends that Twitter essentially provides an at-your-finger-tips professional learning community that can help educators stay abreast of their field.

“It is my best learning tool,” says Nussbaum-Beach, who is co-founder of Powerful Learning Practice, LLC, a digitally-oriented professional development provider. “I believe strongly that in today’s changing learning landscape, in order to stay on top of the spiraling changing pace, you need to use a resource like Twitter. Having a network to turn to when I have a question is invaluable.”

Twitter tips

• Begin by following people you already know and trust.
• Explore related resources like Twitter4Teachers (http://twitter4teachers.pbworks.com/), a wiki that helps teachers find other teachers on Twitter in their subject area.
• At least at first, limit your network to a manageable number of followers; be mindful of information-gathering objectives.
• Be generous in “retweeting” – i.e., share messages by others with your followers.
• When appropriate, use hashtags (#literacy) to share your tweets with a larger interest group; but do not overuse hashtags.
• Tweet wisely: Remember that whatever you post can be shared across the Internet; avoid talking about individual students or colleagues.

Both Nussbaum-Beach and Ferriter say their Twitter networks provide targeted feedback and resources from peers that other Internet tools like Google and message boards cannot match.

“Google is a powerful search engine, but it’s not nuanced the way Twitter is,” explains Ferriter. “Searching Twitter is searching the minds of teachers. It’s collective intelligence. When you can pick the brains of 200 highly accomplished teachers, you’ll get good success.”

“I have a learning network that can help me, give me resources, collaborate 24/7,” says Nussbaum-Beach of her Twitter connections. “So anytime I want to plug in, the help is there.”

Not for Everyone
Still, not all educators see Twitter as a must-use tool for professional learning. Jim Randolph, a blogger and K-5 teacher of English-language learners in Gwinnett County, Ga., agrees that Twitter has potential as a learning tool, but says he didn’t find it useful enough to stick with it after an initial trial.

Time and convenience played a big part in Randolph’s decision ultimately to close his account. Twitter is blocked in his district and there’s no cellphone reception in his school, so receiving tweets by text wasn’t an option. And he didn’t have time to wade through all the tweets on his page when he got home from work.

Randolph agrees that it’s necessary to stay connected to the online education community to keep learning, but doesn’t see Twitter as the only way.

“(Twitter supporters) are right. It’s important to know what’s going on, but I think blogs and Twitter do equal roles in keeping you informed,” says Randolph. In particular, Randolph points to the importance of blog RSS feeds, which he can access at school, in helping him stay connected with educators outside his building.

Though she praises Twitter, Nussbaum-Beach agrees that building a network is more important for teacher learning than what program you use. “It isn’t that one tool is better than the other. You’re going to go where the people [you want to connect with] are, where you can build the best network relevant to your interests.”

Even avid Twitter proponents like Ferriter admit that Twitter alone can’t provide the same sort of deep learning that in-person professional development sessions can, but they say it fills a separate, valuable role.

“If you’re talking about an expert coming into my building giving a deep and meaningful talk, that’s not Twitter,” Ferriter explains. “But good PD (Professional Developement) targets the individual needs of a particular teacher. Twitter allows me to tailor my research and learning to the things I need to learn about. It’s a completely differentiated learning opportunity.”

“Maybe Twitter itself isn’t good PD,” he adds, “but it’s the bridge to very good, meaningful PD.”

As first appeared in Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook, Fall/Winter 2009. Reprinted with permission from Editorial Projects in Education.

We live in a world chock-full of technology, and our jobs as teachers and trainers are increasingly enmeshed in DVDs, CDs, computers, the internet, etc. We may use this technology with our students in class, on teacher training courses or to give presentations at conferences. Sometimes, though, no technology is best and a brief dictation will do; at other times technology is de rigueur and the question then is how best to use it.

In my time I’ve also seen a lot of technology used by teachers and trainers in presentations and unfortunately, I’ve also seen a lot of it abused. So here are 15 tips on how to make the best use of three pieces of technology so that your presentations are professional and successful – the flip chart (yes, it is technology), the OHP chart (still with us) and PowerPoint – the tiber-presentation technology and the one that is most abused.

The flip chart
Let us start with the simplest – the flip chart. This relatively small white board on three extendable legs, with a pad of large sheets of papers, is simple training technology. It is suitable for small, intimate groups and has the advantage that there is little that can go wrong. You might run out of paper, but fortunately there is normally a built-in back-up – the whiteboard.

Although the flip chart is simple, fool-proof technology, you still have to know how to use it effectively.

Tip 1
Prepare in advance
Prepare the sheets of paper in advance and then just flip them over to reveal them. You should decide if you are going to flip over to the back or flip down from the back. You can leave blank sheets in between your prepared sheets in case you need to add things, record ideas from the audience, etc. if you find you don’t need these sheets, just turn over two at a time.

Tip 2
Use pencil outlines
If you can’t prepare the whole sheet before you start – perhaps because you want to reveal things gradually or build up an argument, then make a pencil block outline of the letters of what you want to write on the paper in advance and use the outline as a guide for your writing. This will help your writing look more professional.

Tip 3
Use notes hidden in plain sight
If you can’t prepare your sheets in advance or make pencil outlines, then just make a note in small writing in one of the top corners of the sheet of the points you want to make; you’ll be able to see the notes, the audience won’t.

Tip 4
Practice writing on the chart
Preparing in advance allows you to make your sheets look good – your writing will be level, with the letters of regular shape and size, and you can use different colours to emphasise your points. If you are writing as you present, you need to have practised writing on flip charts so that your letters are regular and even, stand in front of the board as you write to be sure your lines don’t slope downwards. Don’t write from one side.

Tip 5
Don’t talk to the chart
If you have to write on the chart during the presentation, remember to turn to the audience from time to time to keep in contact. Don’t talk to the chart!

Tip 6
Tear off the paper
Don’t forget you can tear sheets off and use them for groupwork, brainstorming or as posters around the room.

The OHP
Moving up the technology scale, the overhead projector has been with us a training tool since about 1945. Because of its increased complexity, compared to the flip chart, there is more that can go wrong – for example, the bulb can blow, though most machines have a second bulb for just this kind of emergency.

As a projection system, there are, of course, more ways to misuse it – like the classic mistakes of standing in the projector light or putting slides or transparences upside down. However, the great advantage of the OHP over other projection systems is that you can easily go back to earlier slides to review them – your presentation is not necessarily linear – and you can even leave out slides and no one will know.

Tip 7
Use pictures as well as text
Your slides should use relevant pictures or charts to grab your audience’s attention. Remember: words often don’t have the impact of visuals.

Tip 8
Use a sufficiently large font size
Can you read your slides? Go to the back of the room – can you read the text from there? If not, use a much bigger font; at least 30 points for text. Use different sizes. A bigger font (even up to 70 points) is suitable for headings or titles. Remember that the further the projector is from the screen, the large the writing will be, so experiment with the placing of the projector if you can.

Tip 9
Remember that less is more
The slides are an aid to your presentation – they are not your presentation. The text and pictures and graphics on your slides are just the hook to catch your audience’s attention.

Keep to one topic per slide; a maximum of about six lines and up to six words per line. That’s all. Say everything else.

Tip 10
Maximize your value
If you have big chunks of text on your slides and you stand there reading them, what value are you adding to the presentation? Most people can read, so why are you there? If you must have long quotes (see Tip 9), then let people read them, sense when they have finished and then talk. And if you must read, don’t turn to the screen to do it. Stand to one side of the OHP, read off your transparency on the glass plate, and look up from time to time to make eye contact with your audience.

PowerPoint
PowerPoint is becoming ever more necessary in teachers’ lives. Yet PowerPoint is often so badly used that it is frequently regarded as the bete noire of effective communication.

Also, with the increase in technology – having to match up a computer with a projector, for example – there are many more things which can go wrong. For this reason, it is best if you can use your own laptop if possible as you’ll know all the right settings.

Of course, all the tips for OHP slide design apply equally to PowerPoint, but in addition, keep the following things in mind.

Tip 11
Stand up
At a Eurocall conference in Finland I was shocked as presenter after presenter said ‘I’ll have to sit down to press the mouse button/advance the slides’. They promptly sat down and droned through their prepared remarks, moving from slide to slide. Each slide was filled with dense text and unreadable charts. It was extremely dull as there was no contact between the presenter and audience; no connection and little communication. Stand up and talk to your audience – move amongst them, make eye contact (don’t look at the screen behind you), be there with them, communicate!

Tip 12
Don’t go mad
PowerPoint is very powerful. You can do lots of fancy things such as having text fly in, zoom out, twist, collapse and so forth. Marvellous? No.

You should do none of these things. Just have very simple slide transitions and simple text appearance/disappearance. Avoid ‘PowerPoint madness’ – just concentrate on the message.

Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, famously removed PowerPoint from his managers’ computers because he was fed up with them spending hours creating fancy PowerPoint presentations. Instead, he gave them each a small whiteboard and told them he wanted ideas, just ideas. If you must use PowerPoint, then keep it simple. Your audience will thank you.

Tip 13
Produce proper handouts
PowerPoint also enables you to print out your slides as a handout for your audience. This gives your audience something to take away and also somewhere for them to make notes.

But remember, your slides are not your presentation, they are just the hook. They are not your argument. A summary sheet of your ideas or thoughts or proposals is much more valuable to your audience than the slides they are going to watch – and indeed, why should they watch them on the screen when they already have them in front of them on a piece of paper? Write a proper handout and give it out at the end, not at the beginning.

Tip 14
Set up an escape-route to the end
A PowerPoint presentation is a linear argument in a way that an OHP-based presentation does not necessarily have to be. With OHPs, you can repeat and skip easily. With PowerPoint, you are trapped in a sequence from slide 1 to the end. If you are running out of time and you want to skip to the end, the most important slide or whatever, everyone can see what you are doing and will know that you got your timing wrong, you have too many slides or you have too much to say in the time available.

A clever escape from this trap is to put a hidden hyperlink on your final few slides to your last slide or two. If you realise you are running out of time, just click on the invisible link (perhaps in your logo at the bottom of the page) instead of going forward to the next slide. As if by magic, you will move to the last slide and can wrap things up without anyone being any the wiser.

Tip 15
Watch your timing
Connected to Tip 14 is the question of timing and this relates to all technologies and all presentations. It is your professional obligation to your audience and any presenters who might be following you to finish on time. There are no ifs or buts about this.

Even if the presenter before you finishes late, you don’t have the right to speak for your 45 minutes and so make everyone else start late, too. You have a time slot, with a beginning and an end which you should fit into. It’s only common courtesy and one of your key obligations as a presenter.

So what’s best then? In my view, for small groups you can’t beat a flip chart as there is so little that can go wrong/for anything larger or more formal, then an OHP is in my opinion much more flexible than PowerPoint. If you really need to use PowerPoint, then do make sure your have planned your presentation carefully.

Some flip chart tips were adapted from The Trainer’s Pocketbook by John Townsend, published by Management Pocketbooks.

Robert Buckmaster is a teacher, trainer and manager. He is currently the Director of Studies at International House, Riga, Latvia, and he occasionally does consultancy work for the British Council and Crown Agents. He is writing a book on English Grammar.

This article first appeared in English Teaching Professional, Issue 62, August 2009 and is reproduced here with permission from the publisher.

1. ALU – An important component in the CPU, the Arithmetic Logic Unit or ALU is a digital circuit that performs calculations and logical operations.
2. Input device – is a device through which you provide the computer with data that needs to be processed. The key board, mouse and joystick are examples of input devices.
3. Output device – is a device or a peripheral connected to the computer through which you get the data you send to the processor.
4. Operating system – is essentially the interface between the hardware of the computer such as the CPU, ALU, keyboard, mouse, etc., and the user. An operating system hosts all computer applications and controls the hardware. Linux, Mac OS X, Windows NT, Windows 7 are all different kinds of operating systems.
5. Web camera – is a small camera connected to the computer which captures video. These videos can be shared with others via internet or edited with a movie making software.
6. Motherboard – is basically a circuit that holds crucial components of a computer system. It also provides connectors to other peripherals.
7. Cache – is a temporary storage in the computer where frequently accessed data can be stored.
8. RAM – Random Access Memory or RAM is a place where data is stored in the computer.
9. Blue-ray dics – are the latest in removable storage technology. These optical disc storage mediums are used for storing high-definition video, PlayStation 3 video games, and other data, with up to 25 GB per single layered, and 50 GB per dual layered disc. A Blue-ray disc looks similar to the DVD. The Blue-ray disc uses blue-ray ultra violet laser i.e 405 nm blue-violet laser to read the disc whereas the DVD uses a 650 nanometer red laser.
10. USB – The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a way of connecting a computer and its peripherals. It is also called a pen drive.
11. Bluetooth – is an open wireless connection for exchanging data. Bluetooth devices use short radio waves for exchanging data. Data is divided into smaller chunks for easy transmission and then patched up by the Bluetooth receiver.
12. Wi-Fi – is a set of wireless local area network devices. A Wi-Fi enabled device can connect to the Internet when it is within the range of the Wi-Fi network. Now Wi-Fi technology is available in computers, laptops, mobile phones, printers, scanners, facsimiles and game consoles.
13. WiMAX – Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is a technology based on telecommunications. WiMAX provides wireless transmission of data from variety of modes such as single point-to-point transmission to point-to-multipoint transmission, portable and mobile devices and fully mobile internet access. WiMAX is considered an alternative to cable and wired internet connections.
14. 3G – is the third generation of telecommunications technology. The first two being 2G and 2.5G. A 3G connection would provide a complete mobile environment in which one would have access to wide-area wireless voice telephone, video calls, and wireless data.
15. CDMA – Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is a technology used in communications especially digital communication, and wireless technology. Conventional communication systems use constant frequencies; CDMA uses multiple access, or multiplexing. Multiplexing is coupled with code division which means CDMA equipped appliances require a certain code to send and receive the frequency.

GSM – Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) is again a technology in telecommunications where mobile phones connect to the GSM network by searching for cells that are close by.

16. Palmtop – a handheld PC is referred to as a palmtop. It is smaller than the laptop. The first handheld computer Atari Portfolio was developed by IBM in 1989.
17. Netbooks – are the latest trends among laptops. Netbooks are smaller, and lighter than regular laptops, and are inexpensive to boot. They are meant for general computing and accessing web-based applications.
18. Cloud computing – is the development and use of computer technology based on sharing hardware and software resources via the internet. To put it simply instead of investing in expensive software’s and applications a new system allows us to log into a Web-based service which has all the programs for a particular task. These set of programs can be shared by multiple people connected to the network. Some other company operating remotely would offer programs and services required. No longer is it necessary for a business or organization to own the computer infrastructure to run a task.
19. Convergence – is the availability of different media on a single platform. For example, on the internet one can read books or text or newspapers, watch videos and listen to music.
20. Pixels – are the smallest unit of information in an image. In other words each pixel is a sample of the original image. Pixels are either arranged two-dimensionally as squares or as dots. Each pixel has each pixel has typically three or four colour components such as red, green, and blue, or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
21. Streaming media – is sending and receiving multi-media such as video and audio constantly. Audio or video stream can be streamed either live or on demand.
22. URL – Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is way to find resource on the internet and a method to retrieve it. A URL specifies the address of a file and every file on the Internet has a unique address. A URL consists of a protocol like http or https, host computer name www, domain name like teacherplus, domain type like org, path /editorial and file name /challenging-the-not-so-obvious. So a URL will look like: http://www.teacherplus.org/editorial/challenging-the-not-so-obvious.

IM – Instant Messaging (IM) is sending and receiving text messages at the same time between two or more people via the internet or intranet. Instant messaging is sometimes referred to as ‘Chat’. IM has several advantages apart from sending and receiving messages in real time. Through IM one can send and receive files. IM has a video feature which allows you to see and be seen by people you are chatting with. Talking via IM using microphones and speakers for free is a feature that has gained popularity over the recent times.

23. Blogs – Blogs are website-like spaces on the internet created and maintained by individuals, businesses or groups. People use blogs for various reasons to talk about news, events or subjects that interest them or as personal diaries. Blogs are also created by businesses and organizations to enhance their position with internal employees or external stakeholders. There are also blogs that focus on particular subjects. A blog can contain text, video, sound or pictures. Each entry in a blog is called a post and each blog is made up of multiple posts.

This is by no means comprehensive and there are many other terms that you may come across in your journey through information technology. Other articles in this issue also describe terms that are not included here. And just like the field, the language is also growing every day!