Buy-In

The other day, I was talking to Jennifer about how people seem to believe that technology is the golden ticket for education. In other words, that the addition of technology will improve teaching, increase student engagement, and influence recruitment and retention. And academics are not the only ones. At my job, whenever there is a discussion about improving a system or function, the first suggestion is always increasing the technological involvement. Its never "lets get to the root of the issue" or "lets re-evaluate the allocation of our resources," its always "what technology can we use to fix the issue?"

A passage I read this weekend in Effective Teaching with Techonology in Higher Education (Bates & Poole, 2003) further underscored that sentiment:

Another recurring feature of the development of educational technology has been an unwarranted optimism by business and government that each new technology would be a panacea for all the shortcomings of the education system. In the end, it has proved obstinately difficult to integrate technology into education, at least to the extent that its transforming or radically improving the cost effectiveness of education (page 8).

I think that we should approach incorporating new technology the same way we approach buying new clothes. Wait, lemme explain.

When we buy new clothes, we do it for one of two reasons: we want something new or we need something new. The exact reason isn't important because the following process is essentially the same. Then we do some research, try it on, and make sure it fits within the framework of our personal style (and budget). Technology, especially in the classroom should work the same way. We cant just throw technology at people, expecting them to know what to do with it and magically expecting it to fix them (I call this the What Not to Wear approach). We need to give people the chance to experience and try it on before they decide to buy.

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