Does Technology Cause Learning--(Quite Long, sorry)

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 various 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 acetate 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 acetate 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 compared 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.

Let’s go in a different direction. Let’s say that learning is the result of encountering something new (in various ways, problems and curiosity being two obvious ones), then working on relating it to prior knowledge, manipulating the relevant data, and reflecting on your process of dealing with the new item. This model is one put forth in How People Learn and seems robust. Can technology help with either of these three subprocesses? Well obviously it can. A person can perform any of the three using a technology, though, of course, no technology is required. For example if I wander off the trail and get lost but know that the mountain range was behind me as I entered the forest, and if I know that if I walk toward the mountains I will eventually hit the road, then when I walk toward them, find the road and my car, I will have solved my problem without any technology whatever.

Of course, if I had used a compass or a map I could have solved my problem with the aid of technology, an interaction that is absolutely essential if I get lost in a canoe in a fog on a lake with many islands. But what CAN technology do by itself to help me learn or to help me learn better? Granted the learning model I posited above, can technology help me relate, manipulate or reflect better? Well, first of all it could help me manipulate data faster and more thoroughly, showing history, range and patterns more quickly than I could produce by myself. In that way technology is a kind of ‘social learning community’, like a group of research assistants, it can find and present data faster than I could collect and arrange it. So it can help me that way. I can perhaps even be more assured that my data and my manipulations are correct, so the conclusions I draw are more useful. The example of the map and compass in the fog seem appropriate here.


But relating to prior knowledge or reflecting on process and implication, do not seem as amenable to technological intervention. I suppose I could technologize my prior knowledge and use technology to search likely areas that my memory suggests, helping me contact something essentially historical for me—a photo, an article, something I wrote. Again the technological ability appears to be speed, efficiency and range. I still have to interact with the technology to send it on its research journey. I have to tell it where to look. I could also use it to create a web of assistance with prior knowledge, asking others for their memories. There is nothing particularly technical about this act, except that I can ask lots of people and receive lots of answers relatively quickly.

So that brings me to reflection. It strikes me that this process is hard to technologize. I could use word processing to type out my reflections, or audio recording to speak them, but aside from making a record, which is good, the technology does not particularly help me, unless I argue as some do that the act of creating, especially in writing, is the act of discovery. But anyone who has ever been in a good conversation knows that the same level of discovery is possible simply by the interaction. I don’t know that technology can help you reflect better.

As I look at what I have written, I see speed, range, efficiency, social community both technical and personal, ease of contacting data. In the end then technology can help me learn better if I see it as other than learning that Washington was the first president. What the technology does do is allow me to create iterations faster, and if iterations are a basic cause of realigning brain synapses then that is a major help. If I can be surer of my data, as supplied by my technological community, then I can reflect with more confidence, and I should be able to probe my history with more confidence. The confidence level should affect my quality as a learner—because I would be closer to the expert capability of chunking my knowledge and drawing on the most relevant parts in order to solve future problems.

All by itself does technology change the need to invest myself in the process? No. but once I invest what does it allow me? My answer at this time would be that it allows me speed and confidence so that I can successfully encounter more problems. It then gives me two things, the solution to the current problem and the expertise to deal with the future. Other ways will—and obviously have—grant the same allowance. However, as no one will return to the quill pen, no one will return to laborious book searching by lone individuals, at least not for most of the problems. Can technology help you learn better? Well, yes, if you see that not just finding the answer is what you mean by learning.