Learning Through Technology

Learning Through Technology

My question today is Do you learn through technology? I see this as a slightly different question than do you learn with technology? Let me explore both.

First, some assumptions. Right now I am assuming that the end product of the learning process remains the same. (perhaps this is it, the learning is a process not the product). In the end a good paper is a good paper, and the same with two other items, a good photograph and a good fitting pair of pants. End products are always created by technology. So there have been written documents for easily 2500 years. During that time superb documents, classics for the ages, have been composed using quill and parchment technology. The great Roman works, the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysberg Address come to mind. The assumption I would make is that these documents are the definition of good. If a document is as good as they are, then that document is good, regardless of the technology used to create it.
The same is true of early photographs--say Steichen's. His images are good. Any image, created in any way, must be as good as that, and can't be any better than that. And the same is true of pants fitting. Regardless of how they are made, by hand stitching or machine, a good fit is a good fit.

The interesting thing about this is that new technologies replace old ones and no one goes back to the old ones. Word processors have for many people replaced pen and paper which in turn replaced quill and parchment. Even though a person could still produce a paper using either of the previous two, once you move to the new, you don't go back to the old, and you certainly don't go back two versions. You probably go can and do go back to pen and ink, but the number of people who would go back to quill and parchment is infinitesimally small.

So in terms of learning once you know a thing, you know it, regardless of how you got there. I know that Washington was the first president. I can't improve on my grasp of that fact and no one can really have a better grasp of that fact than I do. But of course someone can know a whole lot more about the implications of that fact. For instance I also know, from crossword puzzles, that Edo is the old name for Toyko. I know that as well as the residents of Toyko know it, but I have no sense whatever of the implications of that fact, a condition that I will return to later.

On to the second question. Do you learn with technology? Well, yes you do. To learn you go to a class room, use a pen and notebook to take notes, read from a book or magazine. Or you go to a lab and use various instruments to perform operations on very objects, and record the results of those operations using paper and ink, and pens. In other words it is fairly clear that you interact with a technological world in order to learn, and that learning, in one way, is interacting with the technological world.

Now, the interaction with the technological world can impede your ability to produce a quality document. You have to master the technology in order to make it work for you. Of course many technologies work hard to reduce this need to learn. Hooking up a tv to a cable system is now much easier than it was just five years ago. Then you had to manually cause the tv to'memorize' each channel available on the system. Now the tv does that by itself, thus making it much easier (and thus desirable) to buy and use such a tv. The same is true say of overheads. If I know how to make an overhead, using a clear acetane sheet, and a typed page. I can conceive of the idea, open the software program, type, save, and print the document, go to the master maker, run the sheet and the acetane through the machine and take it to class and project it on the screen using the projector that is there in the class. I know before I start that I have mastered this process and that I can go from nothing to displayed in class in about five minutes. However, I could also do the exact same thing with a powerpoint slide, in less time, if I open my laptop, open powerpoint, type the slide, save it, and carry the laptop to class where I connect it to the cord, turn on the overhead and project it from my computer onto the wall. But the point here is that if I do not know the technology of laptops, powerpoint, and the classroom lcd projection system, I will not use the technology, because it will take longer, I am not sure of the results (which I need to be sure of since I need it for a point in class), and I wish to avoid frustration.

In other words I cannot produce a quality document in powerpoint until I master powerpoint and the attendant display system. Thus my students will not use the electronic technology to learn, nor will I use it to teach, until I master the technology, though presumably the end product is as good and as effective whichever technology I use.

Let me go on. If I learn the technology I can make a better end product, in some ways. So for instance I can eliminate reader discomfort by typing the essay, thus they do not have to decipher my bad handwriting. I can eliminate little errors in my photographs by touching them up with Photoshop. I can achieve better because I know how to use the technology. I am able to learn with technology because I can bring the photo onto the screen, change it, and make it better. I can do this process faster and easier on screen than I ever could by using a dark room. Notice the important part in the above description. It is the "change it and make it better"--the need to change it and the identification of the item to eliminate reside in my head, I think. I have amalgamated that into my value or judgment systems and I come to that conclusion and then I use the technology to fix it. There are variations on this process. So as I type, my program keeps underlining in green the two spaces I use after a period. It is signaling me that this item is wrong and should be corrected. If I eliminate one of the spaces, the green underline goes away and I have a better paper. And if I type "teh" the program will automatically rearrange the letters and place "the" on the page. In other words the technology makes my paper better even though I have not learned to type correctly. It finds and fixes the error.

Now this find and fix appears to have a social dimension. How would I or the program know to find and fix? It is because I have had iterations--other times that I have done this--that have been comapred to a standard created by others and explained in one way or another to me by others. So I might not see that a particular bright spot, or background item, hinders the effectiveness of a photo. But if other people who have mastery look at my work and use the standard that they have internalized as part of their becoming a master and if they apply that to my work, showing me what is wrong and explaining the principle to me, then I internalize it and use it in my work. The same can be said of well fitting pants. If I wear pants that are too long or short, I still cover my legs. But if someone else points out to me, as they do on Queer Eye on the Straight Guy, that my pants are ill-fitting and then show me how to judge well-fitting, I am able to internalize their principle and then in the future use the internalized principle and apply it to other pairs of pants. In other words the ability to make things better comes from not just my abilities with technology and with judgment, but also comes from my interaction with other people who have attained mastery in this system (paper, photo, pants).

This of course seems to be avoiding the question. I can make a better photograph using technology but do I learn through the technology? In other words even if I have a better understanding of technology I am not, it seems, able to make a better paper than you. If you are a better writer than I then your paper will be better even if I know word processing very well and you hand write it and have someone else type it.

Do I learn through technology, do I HAVE to learn through technology, in order to achieve the mastery that I need to show that I have learned. In other words can technology assemble in my head what I need in order to have a better product. Well for doctors there seems to be a situation where something like that happens. A good doctor analyzes a situation, and takes a course of action which allows a cure. However, in a complicated problem the doctor will take blood, urine, even fecal samples and have them analyzed by technological tests to identify ingredients, say potassium levels or the presence of certain kinds of bacteria. As a result of the piece of paper that he or she receives with the results on, he or she makes a decision on a course of action. The technology has performed all the analysis for the doctor. What the doctor has to be able to do is apply principles, gotten from other iterations and other interpretations from other doctors, in order to effect a cure. The analysis shows this level of potassium, thus prescribe this pill, that type of bacteria, thus this antibiotic.