Reality

toc Technology rarely lives up to its billing. This fact is made worse because people who love technology typically see problems as minor glitches on the way to techie nirvana while people who have to use technology but are not so enamored of it view the times when technology does not work as a major problem and also a major irritation.

There are actually some interesting implications for all of us because of this fact.

=Perspectives on Technology= One is that those of us who really do enjoy technology need to be aware of other perspectives regarding technology's failures; we are doing a great disservice to teachers and students when we discount these perspectives. Technology is challenging enough to use without people feeling helpless when problems happen because they feel they have little support for getting the problems solved.

=Skills= An important thing is to teach skills for dealing with failures such as ctrl z, ctrl-alt-delete, and restart). These skills can solve a lot of problems by allowing people to back out of them without needing a lot of technological information about what led to the problem. Technological information is wonderful, but it's not very helpful when a bunch of students are waiting to be taught or there is a deadline in creating a resource for students. With ctrl-z and its friends, a person can do a reasonably satisfying job and then learn greater technological details as they move forward.

=Redundancy= A second implication is that the expensive tech toys can also have these problems. Instead of spending huge amounts of money on things that still crash on occasion or get stuck, then we should give everyone a background in what to do when the technology doesn't work and buy the cheaper version so that more kids have more access to these learning tools. In addition to less expensive technology, we should create a certain amount of technology duplication with donated, refurbished machines of various sorts. Additionally, while it looks great when everyone is working on the exact same brand of desktop, laptop, or tablet, having matching technology across a classroom can get in the way of using it effectively. If an app does not work on one type of machine, it may well work on another or there will be a reasonable alternative and teaching and learning can move forward. A fire house wouldn't have just one type of firetruck because different situations call for different things such as a ladder truck or emergency squad truck. Having a range of types of technology and brands within a given type of technology as well as some duplication of functions within that range of technology ensures that precious classroom minutes will not be wasted on getting frustrated with something that doesn't work.

=Plans A, B, C...Z= A third implication is to teach about creating plans A, B, and C when it comes to teaching with technology. There are several ways to do anything one would wish to do using technology. If the tablets don't work, a lot of the same work can be done with desktop machines. If the desktops and the tablets don't work and some students have smart phones with unlimited data plans, work can be accomplished that way. When there are not enough computers/tablets/smart phones for students, then either turn the work into something a group of students can accomplish (and learn from each other along the way) so that each group gets a computer, or schedule the machines in relation to other things going on in the classroom--having some kind of learning going on for the students not using the computers and then have a different group of students use the machines and the original group working in the alternative experience. Available classroom technology can include the standard issue school computers but also donated machines that can be used as plan B in a lot of situations. The eventual plan that works is likely to be the use of several different types of technology to work on the same learning.

In addition to technology redundancy, we should remember that for every piece of software we might download and install on a given platform, there are lots of online web apps that do not require downloading and installation (safer from viruses) and that work on a variety of different machines, including tablets as well as laptops/desktops. Students might especially like the online apps (free ones, that is, or ones where the basic/free level of participation does enough that the web app is worthwhile) because they can use those at home or in the public library if they have any kind of internet access.