The 1000+ page “Second Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education” was explored for importance, predictability, and unexpected conclusions on the use of educational technology. What was most striking about the video presentations and summaries of this literature was how reflective they were, on the presentation-level, of the content and conclusions of the literature itself. Clearly there exists a disconnect between the literature and the practice of using technology which can be attributed perhaps to a deliberate separation between the two by an unconscious intention of academic control.

 

The Crux of the Matter

How to begin summarizing what has been a set of group-based assignment instructions using basic video production technology is a great challenge for me. The challenge is in speaking to the instructed focus on the content of the presentations and not on the quality. But therein lies the crux of the matter. Just how many Ted Talks has one skipped through to get at the good parts mentioned by someone’s comments below the video? While some Ted Talk topics may have a particular interest for a particular viewer, the format remains basically the same for everyone; someone standing in front of a screen, facing an audience, and talking while giving a slideshow presentation. How many times have we unintentionally tuned out of a video during a professional development presentation because we’ve heard and watched the same sort of message in the same bland format at so many previous presentations?  How can one identify the most interesting issues when the content itself does not even come close to being presented using the conventions and potential of the media and the technology being used to present them? Is this why research methods continue to expand and evolve yet remain within collectively accepted ethical standards and rigours of writing, review and publication? Could we also be disabling new directions in research by limiting our presentations to a standardized academic format?

 

An Issue of Competence or Content-to-Technology Suitability?

It is by no fault of my peer masters students nor our instructor that the most glaring issue for me was in the level of competence by which the use the technology, however simple the setup, affected interest in the content and its delivery in a succinct and clear way. How does one take an academic piece of literature, form an opinion of it, and be able to adapt one’s thought’s about it to suit the medium of video? Many times even the professional screenwriter doesn’t always adapt a pre-existing piece of literature well. Look at most of Stephen King’s film adaptations, or this year’s adaptation of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer winning novel “The Goldfinch” adapted by Peter Straughan and directed by John Crowley. The book was obviously lauded, but the movie was panned by critics and audiences, and the $45 million budget flopped as it has taken in under $8 million domestic and international combined to date. How does this happen on such a professional level and on such a grand scale?  Are there pieces of literature that simply do not translate well into film or video? Could it also be the creativity and talent behind the translation that inadvertently builds a disconnect to the original material and ruins its intention and effect? Does the content and context suit the medium? Can academic literature make for good watching?

Proof of Learning Content, But to What End?

In our schools, we look for novel ways to engage our students in learning. Very often we turn to new technologies to assist us in this regard. Teachers are encouraged to use them and in some cases schools or even school districts are sold new technologies with the promise that they will enhance learning in the classroom. Even some are backed up by academic research. However, in my own twenty-year experience as a teacher, I have seen the majority of my colleagues use technology as a tool that simply presents lesson content in a new format.

Much of the research that our course has explored in Educational Technology has begun to vibrate with a common subtle yet unsettling tone. This tone was illustrated by the content of the video presentations. As much as there were attempts to respect both the research being reviewed and the format and conventions of video presentation, neither one held onto their respective dignity well. If the video was interesting, it may have come off as subtly demeaning or making light of the research by prioritizing the entertainment and attention-holding value that makes video worth watching. If the research was prioritized, the video suffered in holding attention and using the technology in an effective way. The instructions did explicitly state that “Your mark will be based on the content of your presentation – the completeness of your summary and the quality of your reflections.”  (Assignment 2) to the exclusion of the potential that the format of video technology offers in being able to re-contextualize content, provide new insights, and individualize the message. When I reflect upon the work that was presented, the content to some extent was a reiteration of the research, a record of proof that the research was read and understood. Important, predictable, and unexpected considerations appeared for many to be an external adjunct. There was a tone created by a missing piece whose shadow subverted the content and issues that the research explored.

That tone was amplified in that there was emphasis put on the deliberate omission of quality by which video technology was to be used. It created a illustrative effect that most of the research itself purported; technology use in the classroom needs to be used in exacting ways and for express purposes that include the combining of curriculum content with gaining aptitude in the potential that the technology being used can communicate ideas in rich and exciting ways and that teacher training was sorely lacking in mitigating this issue. How can this be done when the basis for using technology in an educational setting requires the teacher to have mastered the technology? As much of the research inferred, more teacher-training is required in this ever-changing field of education.

 

Implications for Further Research

When I introduce my students to video/film production, my first instruction to them is to pay attention in their English classes. If they cannot recognize what parts are required for and how to put a sentence together and what is needed to make it interesting, then they cannot hope to bring any kind of coherent and interesting story to the screen. This is where technology hits the pavement in the hands of the teacher. It is not good enough to know how turn the power on, or how to get the best sound, or how to use fun compositing effects. A teacher using technology in the classroom has to be adept at helping their students find the common threads that bind technology to their learning and how its use is a personal expression of who they are as individuals, and framing a good shot, recording decent sound, and finding an authentic story to share is just the beginning of using technology for an educational purpose. Using an iPad to record lesson content is simply adding an appendage to the curriculum. It does not further the student’s understanding of how a thorough technology literacy can expand the student’s skill in being able to communicate ideas in novel and distinct ways. Rather, the perfunctory use of technologies are no more effective than the use of pen and paper, word processor, or digital slideshow to regurgitate content knowledge.

Educational technology is a very different concept than that of using technology in the classroom. That has been my largest realization through this course of research in educational technology. Re-purposing technologies for educational settings cannot compete with the original purpose for which most technology has been designed. Putting technology in the hands of students without a working knowledge of the technology’s full potential has been a mistake and continues to be repeated in classrooms everywhere. The research from the chapters covered by my peers bears this truth and many researchers have tried to mitigate this lack of training by reinventing the purpose and function of technologies through creating their own programs, lesson units, terminologies, and hypotheses without realizing that teachers need to become masters of the technologies they are being asked to employ in their classrooms before any amount of success can be truly measured. This is why so many studies end with the conclusion that “more study in this area is required.”

This has led me to additionally explore how the top-down employment of technology might be a factor in teacher burnout, lower morale, and how the inequities of technology use, access, and skill contribute to a lower sense of belonging in educational settings where there is a respect for autonomy but conversely an unspoken expectation that technologies “offered” will be used.

 

Reference

Voogt, G. Knezak, R. Christensen, & K-W, Lai (Eds.) Second Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education, pp. 3-12. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71054-9]

Mayer, R. (Ed.). (2014). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi:10.1017/CBO9781139547369