Brave New World
From the released emails of Rhode Island’s Commissioner of Education, Deborah Gist, I first learned of a Federal research center seeking to develop and infuse more digital learning into our nation’s public schools. The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies will aid in the development of learning software, educational games and other promising technologies for use in our public schools. One innovative application I recently read about is the use of Twitter in the classroom. Twitter or micro-blogging, as we techies like to call it, was recently praised for its potential to promote student inclusion and facilitate classroom discussions. It seems that many students are shy and don’t like to raise their hand to vocalize an idea or opinion. Sadly, in the past, these classroom recluses were never heard. But now, thanks to the miracle of social media, the persecuted few who could never bring themselves to participate in a classroom activity requiring speech can now Tweet their insights to the teacher who will deftly integrate their Tweet speech with the prosaic spoken speech used by the more fluent and less shy. It is possible that those using vocal speech did not have the means to purchase the requisite iPhone needed for Tweeting or they too might have been spared the shame of vocal communication.
Perhaps a role for “Digital Promise” (NCRAIDT) would be to use its Federal mandate and tax dollars to guarantee the necessary technology for every student to participate in this exemplar of digital learning that will dramatically improve student performance as well as outcomes on required student assessments. As for the shy among us, imagine the enhanced quality of life tweeting will bring them; at lunch they will no longer be mute given their ability to tweet their peers, or tweet their gustatory disgust to the lunch lady. The next time a teacher raises her/his voice at a classroom miscreant, the shy can express their outrage over an unjust use of that teacher’s authority by tweeting an administrator or the local newspaper. I have finally come to realize that Twitter is not a banal technology without substantive utility. Twitter is just one more tool for student empowerment and corporate profit. Let the privatizing continue for it has already begun.
I would like to conclude my macro-blog entry with a plug for an old, but still revered, to me at least, technology. I believe it is called a book. If we want our students to have anything worthwhile to communicate verbally or digitally they better develop a passion for reading. When the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family, or other reformers find the secret elixir which makes reading, writing, and the ability to think essential values of our impoverished culture then I’ll be convinced they truly care about children and the future world they will inherit. However, the only antidotes they have to offer are charter schools, privatization, vouchers, a byzantine teacher evaluation process, and more very narrowly defined technology. These are not solutions but merely business opportunities for the money guys to make more money at the expense of poor and minority students. I still believe education is a calling not a playground for venture capitalists.
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