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TECHNOLOGY: The Technology Penalty THIS column has been rattling around in my head for several years now, and I think the time has come to write it. I frequently write about the benefits, or payoffs, of technology. But what about the technology "penalty"? The technology penalty is what happens when you do something using technology that you could do easier, quicker, or more efficiently without using technology. Allowing students to e-mail you their assignments is a good example of paying the technology penalty. If I collect papers in class, I can simply sit at my desk, read the papers, and scribble notes on them. This task usually takes an hour or so. If I allowed 30 students to e-mail me an assignment, I assure you I could not read and respond to 30 e-mails in an hour. Thus it is a rare occasion when I accept e-mailed assignments. Rather, I usually ask students to print out their assignments and give them to me in class or drop them by my office. Why would I want to do the printing for them? Using calendaring and address book software is another example of incurring the technology penalty. Keeping your calendar on a computer or PDA requires that you start -- or wake up -- the computer or PDA, go to the application, select the view (day, week, month, or year), and scroll or page to the specific date, time, or event. In contrast, I carry a month-at-a-glance paper calendar that I get free from Hallmark every year. Because the previous month's pages are dog-eared, it takes only about a second to find this month's page. The calendar fits in my shirt pocket, so I don't have to drag around any electronics. I also have a small paper address book that fits into the same shirt pocket. Call me old-fashioned if you like, but the systems work for me, and there is no technology penalty. Instructors who teach students how to use powerful software like Photoshop pay an immense technology penalty. Adobe releases a new version of Photoshop every six to 12 months with all kinds of changes and new features. Instructors must then relearn the program and change their syllabus and handouts. Explanatory handouts usually have screen captures in them, so the screen captures from the old version must be updated. If the instructor uses a textbook on Photoshop, that will usually change with each new release of the software as well. A colleague who teaches computer graphics and Photoshop has to go to daylong professional development seminars on Photoshop a couple of times a year just to stay sharp. Fortunately, my colleague has a technician who can upgrade all the computers in his teaching lab, but many teachers have to do their own upgrades. Another example of software that changes rapidly is Web creation software, such as Macromedia's Studio 8. What started out a few years ago as simply Dreamweaver morphed into Studio MX and is now Studio 8. The current version of Studio 8 contains Dreamweaver, Flash Professional, Fireworks, Contribute, and FlashPaper. Each of these programs has its own learning curve that takes a good amount of time to negotiate. Shallow learning curves are certainly a technology penalty. High school teachers are not immune to the technology penalty. Not long ago, I received an e-mail from a high school calculus teacher who had just received a Smartboard. In order to take advantage of all the things the Smartboard could do, the teacher was spending about two hours a day preparing for the next day's lesson. The payoff for his students was great, but so was the technology penalty he was paying. Still another example of paying the technology penalty is using computer gradebook software. Many teachers who use gradebook software also keep a paper gradebook. Doing any job twice, with and without technology, is a definite technology penalty. An inherent penalty in gradebook software is the time it takes to scroll up and down the list of students to enter a grade. Visually scanning a paper gradebook page is much faster. Hint: you can reduce the time it takes to enter grades in gradebook software by assigning every student a number that corresponds to his or her alphabetical place in the class roster and goes on every paper. Then, when you collect papers, ask a student to put them in numerical order. Students can sort papers by number much easier than they can alphabetize them. Hint 2: If you are using spreadsheet software to do your grades, set the preferences so the up/down arrow key moves to the next line. This little trick eliminates the need to hit the return key before you can move. Teachers who incorporate the Internet in their class pay a technology penalty when they create jump pages that link to Internet content that matches their lessons. Unfortunately, many websites change links around regularly, so such jump pages must be updated frequently. I have often thought that schools should have a full-time staff member to maintain course-specific Web jump pages for teachers. You might call this position the "portal builder." Many of my colleagues mistake me for someone who would be a fan of distance learning. I have yet to find a way to implement distance learning in my classes that does not involve a substantial technology penalty. Walking a few minutes to a classroom to interact with 30 or so students for an hour or two is a much more efficient use of time than interacting with them throughout the day and night on a computer. Obviously, there are many benefits associated with distance learning, but I'm writing about penalties -- the tradeoffs, not the payoffs. In an article I wrote some years ago titled "Teachers and Stuff," I argued that innovations and good ideas often fail because of the "stuff" requirement. All too often people want teachers to do things that require stuff they either do not have or do not have the time to find, assemble, or make. Laboratory science is a good example of an educational innovation that has an immense stuff requirement. Another example of an innovation with a substantial stuff requirement is Bruner's Concept Attainment Model, which requires being able to present to students both positive and negative examples of the concept to be taught. Using technology in the classroom can also have a stuff requirement that ups the technology penalty. For example, consider a mobile laptop computer lab cart. Rolling the cart into a classroom, distributing 30 computers, and attaching a mouse to each one takes time. Returning the laptops to the cart and plugging them all into charging stations takes still more time. For this reason, I am not a fan of these kinds of mobile computer labs. Technology-savvy users often pay a technology penalty for their knowledge. Most computer technicians and aides do less work for savvy users, knowing that they can do the work themselves. For example, a technician might install new software for less-able users but simply give the install disks to the savvy user. In my department, there is an extreme example of the less-savvy user getting more help. A colleague and friend of mine has, over the years, steadfastly refused to use technology, shunning e-mail and even word processing. Because we all want to be able to communicate with him and because the department wants him to publish, the administration provides my friend with a graduate student who composes his e-mail, prints all his e-mail for him to read, and types all his work. Perhaps my friend is actually the smart one among us. Another area where the technology penalty shows up is in university promotion and tenure processes that favor print-based publications. Here the technology penalty can literally cause faculty members to fail to receive tenure or promotion. Using technology to create electronic scholarship is undervalued in a publish-or-perish world. About the only faculty members who can afford to generate electronic scholarship and not pay a penalty are tenured full professors. Let me state emphatically that I am not discussing the technology penalty because I want to discourage the use of technology. Rather, I am discussing the technology penalty so that readers can take it into account if they are considering integrating technology into the schools at any level. As the old saying goes, "Forewarned is forearmed." The way to deal with the technology penalty is to know that it exists, to expect it, to plan for it, and to document it. For example, if you are going to create a semesterlong, Web-based, distance-learning course, you should expect it to take about double the work of creating a regular course. I would estimate that it takes about 10-15 hours per week to conduct such a course the first time. As you are doing the course the first time, keep a detailed log of the time and effort involved. While this increases the initial technology penalty, the second time you offer the course, you'll be able to use the log to help you become more efficient. Administrators and others who want to integrate technology into education need to be aware of the technology penalty and plan for it. Administrators can help faculty members deal with the technology penalty by offering them released time, a technician to help, extra pay, or, at the very least, a sympathetic ear. I would even say that administrators who want their faculty members to create distance-learning courses should be prepared to support the development and sustained offering of the course. We cannot continue to expect teachers to take the technology penalty "out of their hides." ROYAL VAN HORN is a professor of education at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville (e-mail: rvanhorn@unf.edu; websites: www.electronicscholar.com and www.luckychild.us). |
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