The ugly, the bad, the good?

So, I’m in the field of educational technology, and I’ve started noticing more and more the sorts discourses that surround this field.  There’s the “technology is ruining our kids” discourse, the “necessary, but not really our ‘nature’” discourse, the “technology can change the world” discourse, and many many more, but those first three I encountered just today in my email inbox.  How about that?  It was quite a day for competing discourses.

Exhibit A: At work we get an email that aggregates news articles regarding education from around the state.  Today there was an article from the Findlay Courier titled, “Cell phones a challenge for educators.” This is part of the “technology is ruining our kids” discourse.  This is the full article; I inserted my own comments in parentheses.

Cell phones worry educators, and “sexting” makes them cringe.  Most schools have the same policy on cell phones: Students must keep their phones turned off and in their lockers throughout the day.  But some school officials say the policy is loosely enforced.  Besides cell phones being disruptive, there is a concern that students could use them to cheat or to spread rumors and gossip through the school quickly (this stuff happens with or without technology). And now, there are concerns about “sexting” (this too).  It gives educators an added incentive to enforce their bans on cell phones.  “We don’t go looking for the cell phones, but if they have them out, we’ll take them,” said Glenwood Middle School Principal David Alvarado.  None of Glenwood’s students has been caught sexting (please note), but Alvarado has found pornography on a student’s phone.  “Anytime you see a group of seventh-grade boys huddling around a phone, it makes you question what they’re doing,” said Alvarado.  He broke up the huddle and searched the phone. There were pornographic pictures, but no pictures of other students, he said. The boy was punished (I wonder how he was punished, this is a little vague).

Findlay High School has turned over one sexting incident to the police, said Principal Victoria Swartz.  “It didn’t take place in school, but we had heard there were pictures on a phone. It’s nothing we saw. We heard a rumor,” Swartz said.  The report turned into a criminal investigation, she said (they turned it over to a criminal investigator based on a rumor?).  That is about as much trouble as Findlay High has had with sexting, but Swartz said school officials aren’t naive enough to think it is not happening (based on this one incident, you need to be afraid).  “That is where parents can help. Be aware of what your children are doing with their phones,” Swartz said (be afraid and alert!).

Swartz can share cell phone horror (sounds like an exaggeration. horror, really?) stories from her work as an assistant principal and attendance officer at Louisville High School in the Akron/Canton area, and as an assistant principal of middle schools in Barberton and Ravenna.  “As a mother myself, I respect the intent parents have with cell phones. I know parents want to know their students are safe, and we don’t want to go around snatching everyone’s cell phones,” she said.  “We have to ask parents to stop calling and texting their student during the school day.”  Parents often cite safety as the biggest reason for giving their children cell phones, Swartz said, but that thinking can backfire if the technology is misused.  She tells a story about three students caught texting during an Ohio Achievement Test, invalidating the test. One boy responded to the text, without cheating. His test was invalidated, too (horror?).  “Now, imagine this boy was a senior and this was his last chance to pass the test before graduation,” Swartz said (imagine!).  Worse yet is Swartz’s story of a student using a photo taken in the locker room to bully another student. The student was disciplined by the school. Today, the same student would also be facing criminal charges, she said (that’s crappy, but horror?).

“In school, we tell them to turn them off,” she said of cell phones. “Out of sight, out of mind, and don’t use them for anything,” she said (sounds like a very naive policy, cell phones are powerful little devices, we can’t just pretend they don’t exist).  Bruce Otley, principal of Liberty-Benton Middle School, said his students are “pretty good” about following the rules and so far, there has been no discipline involving sexting.  “The students need to be aware that anything they send electronically is utterly the same thing as publishing it,” said Otley (be afraid!  you are being watched at all times… the panopticon!). “It is reproducible and retrievable. We tell them not to send anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable reading out loud to your mom” (be afraid, your mom is watching!).

Otley is encouraging both students and parents to attend a technology safety seminar being hosted by Cory-Rawson Schools at 7 p.m. Thursday at Cory-Rawson High School. The seminar is open to the public.  Jay Arbaugh, superintendent of Cory-Rawson, said the presentation is meant to help students avoid the problems that come with the Internet and other technology (a whole seminar on problems?  any positives?).  “Everything is so intertwined now. We’ll cover the issue of sexting, too,” he said (what’s “everything”?).  Arbaugh said his district has had no problems with sexting (so is it a HUGE problem or not?).  However, “It is a worry. You go anywhere and talk to other principals and superintendents about it, and they are worried, too. It makes for some very interesting, and scary, stories. It is something you’d rather not deal with, but you have to be ready,” Arbaugh said (it seems like they are afraid for very little reason).

Richard Steiner, principal of Central Middle School, said there were rumors “of stuff that happened over the summer” involving Central students and sexting, but nothing this school year (isn’t this a pitiful excuse for a case against cell phones?).  Steiner said the school will hold two assemblies, one for seventh- and eighth-graders, and a separate assembly for sixth-graders, on sexting.  The program has been developed by the Hancock County Prosecutor’s Office in cooperation with the Findlay Police Department, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office and the Family Resource Center (gosh, sounds scary).  “We need to make sure they are educated at an early age about the responsibility of the cell phone. It is a great tool for families to use, but it also has its downfalls,” Steiner said (ooh, they said something good about cell phones!).

Don Williams, principal of Donnell Middle School, said being proactive works when it comes to teaching students about the downside of technology (how would he know this?).  Donnell hosted its first parent meeting about Internet safety and the legal perils involved with sexting last year.  “I’d like to think that’s why we aren’t seeing a lot of problems, but it concerns me, too. I’m sure it is happening, but we haven’t been hearing about it,” Williams said (so, is it working or not?  if it’s happening anyway then it’s not).  “We’ve worked to bring attention to it,” said Williams. “The unfortunate thing is kids can make a mistake with this stuff, and it won’t just be a lesson learned, no harm done. I don’t think they realize how permanent these things can be and how it can come back years later and haunt them. I think at this age, it is hard for them to look that far in the future” (be afraid, everyone is watching… the panopticon!).

Ha, I wonder if anyone is still reading this blog post?  That was fun.

Exhibit B: I received a second email, this one from Oprah (yeah, I get emails from Oprah, I know that’s a problem).  This one shows the discourse of “technology is necessary but not our ‘nature’”.  There were lots of links to articles on oprah.com in the email, but this was the intro:

“Make Time for What Matters
Is the technology that’s supposed to be helping you—your BlackBerry, cell phone, laptop—actually keeping you from the things that matter most? Power down and start living life to its fullest instead of letting your devices get the best of you.”

What if technology was part of helping you work with “what matters most”?  Why must we separate “living life to its fullest” and “letting your devices get the best of you”?  What if it’s not either/or, but both/and?  What is “natural” anyway?  Is there a “natural”?

Exhibit C: The third email I received was from MIT’s MediaLab.  At ODE awhile back, I created a unit on Game Design for gifted kids using a free software called Scratch (created by MIT).  Here’s the implied discourse of “technology can change the world”.

“Dear Lauren,

I’m writing to you on behalf of the Scratch Ed team at the MIT Media Lab.  I’d like to invite you to an online community of Scratch educators (at http://scratched.media.mit.edu). ScratchEd is an online space where educators around the world can meet and connect. You can find out about some of the cool things other educators are doing with Scratch, and share your own teaching experiences and resources.

I came across your Scratch unit plan at Curriki and had the pleasure of sharing it with other members of our community (here’s the link).  We’d love to hear more about what you’re doing with Scratch!

Hope you’ll join us online. Please let me know if you have any questions.”

I guess I’m biased toward this discourse more than any others, though I know it’s more complicated (see the much overstated Exhibit A).  Here, technology has enabled a community of educators to share and get feedback on curriculum.  These are the types of things that couldn’t happen in the same way before these technologies were available.

So, is technology good, bad, unnatural, natural, the same old thing, life-changing?  Yes.  It’s not simple.  It’s not black and white.  Our job then?  To be constantly aware, critical, creative, but never satisfied or finished.