Technology At Its Roots

“Well it’s hard to be an outlaw who ain’t wanted anymore…”

Willie Nelson & Billy Joe Shaver

Well...the Fall term has started. K12 and Higher Ed are back to teaching and learning, and it’s business as usual. So long as the usual consists of blending online synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning with traditional delivery methods. While many of us are tired of hearing the phrase, this is the “new normal.” More importantly, it should remain the new normal. COVID-19 has forced, at least Higher Education, into practicing methods and pedagogies which should have been in place decades ago.

However, it’s not all just about the technology.

I think most of us in the Instructional Design and Curriculum Development world can all agree that in Higher Education, the practice of the “Sage on the Stage” is long overdue to be laid to rest, sunsetted, and above all stopped. The same can be said in K12 of worksheets and the traditional stand-by of reading the chapter and answering the questions at the end must halt as well. K12 is changing, faster than Higher Education.

Technology has provided a fertile ground for these dated pedagogies to re-emerge as contenders. Recorded video lectures embedded within the LMS, downloadable PDF worksheets, and links to textbook chapters are all proliferating exponentially, just as they were receding into the long shadows of history.

Having been in Instructional Design and Curriculum Development, I encountered a faculty member who actually was flipping their classroom, correctly I might add, at the beginning of this semester.  

I was amazed.

This was not an Education professor, or teaching in a field that one might expect to know and practice this sort of pedagogy. This was a Social Work professor, who was teaching for the first time, adjunct. This faculty member is actually a practitioner who works full-time as a social worker. They are not what one would consider a professional educator in the traditional sense.

It’s human nature to resist and fear change. This truth is embedded within our DNA. However, change provides the greatest opportunity for progress, development, as well as success. Our challenge in education, especially for Instructional Designer is not only to embrace and apply new educational technology, but to guide faculty in understanding how to best employ this technology in their classroom.

It is important that we must remember the definition of technology. According to its Greek roots, technology is nothing more than a tool or a technique. It does not replace teaching and learning. It helps to facilitate it. It helps to overcome many common obstacles to teaching and learning.  

We must remember, as we deploy new technologies, how much many of us loath having to navigate an automated menu when we call the doctor’s office or our insurance company. Recall the frustration of using Self-Checkout at the grocery store when the scanner doesn’t work correctly. We must never forget our own trials with technology outside of our work. These serve as reminders that technology is not necessarily always the answer.

So, as we move into the new, and uncharted territory that is the Fall Semester of 2020, we need to keep in mind the true nature of technology. It’s easy to get distracted by the new and shiny thing that vendors dangle before us in hopes of closing a sale. If we forget the human, creative, and improvisational nature of teaching and learning then we risk silencing its heartbeat.