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Technology, Children, and the Power of the Heart By Matthew M. Maurer and George Davidson As we introduce new technology into a district, school, or classroom, it is important to take advantage of children's natural ability, enthusiasm, and willingness to master new skills, Mr. Maurer and Mr. Davidson maintain.

TEACHERS can help children become brilliant. Brilliant children have "fire in their eyes." They are active learners, they are mentally challenged and engaged, and they exude a high level of excitement. Educators can use technology to fuel the fire in children's eyes.

As we introduce new technology into a district, school, or classroom, it is important to take advantage of children's natural ability, enthusiasm, and willingness to master new skills. A typical approach is to prepare the teachers first and then let the teachers train the students. Unfortunately, this strategy is slow and unreliable. By the time the teachers have learned about a new technology, what they know may be obsolete. Also, some teachers may never have the willingness, skill, or confidence to transfer their learning to their students. Based on our experience with teachers in classrooms, confidence seems to be the primary constraint. Involving the children from the beginning not only speeds implementation but also overcomes much of the teachers' trepidation about introducing new technology. Having teachers and children learn and work together also models the community of learning and the community of leadership.

It is common for teachers to design teaching methods that begin with a didactic approach and move to hands-on activities. Many teachers are stuck in the transmission or "lecture/demonstration" paradigm. Lecturing is effective in transferring simple knowledge but ineffective for more complex learning. In many cases, transmission teaching is almost counterproductive. Giving children extensive hands-on opportunities with new technologies accomplishes several objectives. The learning process is streamlined by eliminating unnecessary lectures. This approach may also speed learning by demonstrating to the teacher exactly how much instruction the children need. With new technologies, teachers frequently underestimate students' backgrounds, skills, and ability to learn. Many teachers think of learning to use technology as analogous to learning to read or learning mathematics. Children often grasp the use of technology more quickly than adults.

Educators are striving to improve teaching and learning through the power of technology. Thus we ask, "How, specifically, can the power of technology improve education?" Technology adds the power of efficiency. It is more efficient for children to write with a word processor than without one. There is power in having expanded access to information and a wider selection of data. Children can use various means to gather information, such as CD-ROM-based encyclopedias, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. There is power in the new ways that we can organize our classrooms. Computer workstations can engage one or more children in the classroom while the teacher works with others.

However, we seem largely to ignore the affective power of technology in our classrooms. Those of us who work closely with children recognize that many children connect with new technology. They like working with it. In short, they own it. To maximize the power of technology in our classrooms, we need to take advantage of all the power technology affords.

Many educators use an implementation approach that parcels out the power in small portions. From the educator's point of view, the general approach seems to be: "I have the power, and I will give you bits of it as I see fit." This approach tends to quench rather than fuel the fire in children's eyes. We recommend, instead, an approach in which we say: "Hold out your hands so I can give you as much power as you can handle." Our major concerns are to prepare children to use the power for learning and to facilitate or guide that use.

We offer two classroom experiences that illustrate the difference between keeping the power of technology in the educators' domain and releasing that power into the hands of the children.

Journal Writing

We consult with several typical schools that have a moderate to high level of new technology. In one of these schools, teachers and students had been using a variety of hardware and software for several years. We noticed, however, that students were not using word processing as much as they could. Thus we initiated a journal-writing project with the first-grade team. But instead of focusing our efforts on the teachers, we challenged the children.

We established a simple student mentoring process for maintaining journals on the classroom's computer. First, we asked each teacher to select two "word-processing experts" from his or her classroom. Then we trained the experts by creating a model of a journal and a folder on the desktop to hold each child's journal. We explicitly taught the experts how to create a new journal template and how to make daily entries. Next, we assisted the experts in starting their own journals and recording their first entries. Thereafter, the experts served as guides for the other children as they began their journals and made their first entries. We helped the experts with their first student tutorials and then left them on their own to work. They helped each child make his or her first journal entry. We returned to help the students format subsequent journal entries.

Each child was responsible for writing his or her journal entries, which included the day's date and two or three sentences that followed the teacher's cue. The teacher had to supervise the children's turns to write, to monitor their writing, and to provide guidance for their journal topics, but the teacher did not provide computer or word-processing instruction, which was the responsibility of the experts. In each classroom the teacher devised a prompt or challenge to increase the children's interest in and engagement with writing.

This process successfully encouraged most of the children in the five first-grade classrooms to write journals. The children took turns writing during their individual or small-group time in the classroom. Most classrooms had two computers; each child had a chance to write two or three journal entries per week.

There were two kinds of power that we noticed deriving from this project. The most obvious was that all the children had the power of the word processor in their hands. They all could "do it," though with varying levels of speed and accuracy. The more exciting outcome, however, was the effect of the project on the experts. Most of these children blossomed in the expert role. With minimal guidance, they were helpful, on-task, and clearly pleased to carry out their responsibilities.

One particular child stood out. We requested that he be assigned as an expert because of our concern for him. He was only in first grade but gave all the outward signs of giving up on school. He appeared angry most of the time. He was frequently withdrawn and sullen and was becoming a discipline problem. Yet, when he was intellectually challenged, it was clear that this boy was bright and capable. When we symbolically anointed him an expert, he quickly changed his demeanor. He looked happier, he was talkative, he was engaged positively with his peers. The day after we began working with him, he ran to one of us and excitedly asked, "Can I do that again today?" Before the project, the child appeared to be well on his way to fully disengaging from formal education. When we gave him some real power -- the power of expertise -- he quickly engaged with school. We do not treat this as scientific evidence of our thesis. However, it is one compelling observation. It also illustrates another important strategy. We help fuel the fire in children's eyes one child at a time.

Digitizing Pictures

A picture-digitizing project also showed the value of placing power in children's hands. Second-graders were writing stories, and they wanted to illustrate them with pictures taken with a still video camera. Many of the second-grade teachers approached this project with reservations. They thought that digitizing pictures was too complex for students at that level. We persuaded them to try nonetheless.

We again asked teachers to select two "experts" from each classroom to help other children take pictures, digitize them, and place them in their stories. The children who were selected as expert photographers were excited about their responsibilities. Although they may not have been model students at other times, in this role they excelled.

We started by giving the children the cameras and making them responsible for their safekeeping. Responsibility was a powerful element of the project. Although an inner voice screamed at us, "They are going to break them," we let the second-graders take charge of the cameras from the beginning. None were broken.

The process of taking a picture, digitizing it, and placing it in a simple desktop publishing program has numerous interdependent steps. In addition, the task of taking a clear picture involves several rules (for example, hold the camera steady and do not get too close to the subject) and a few concepts (for example, framing and lighting).

We expected the initial learning to take a minimum of two hours and possibly more than one work session. However, the children mastered all the basic techniques in an hour and 20 minutes. We planned to teach the rote steps for taking and digitizing the pictures. We believed that the concepts of good picture taking would develop over time. To our surprise, some of the photography experts quickly "locked on" to the steps and began integrating the concepts that we shared with them.

After our session with the experts, we gave them a chance to share their learning with their peers. They not only modeled the steps but also accurately explained why some of their pictures were fuzzy and when to use the flash. This simple exercise was the most extraordinary bit of technology learning we had ever witnessed. We attributed it to the children's strong desire to know. They wanted to know how to control the cameras and use them to illustrate their stories. They also wanted to be the experts. To put it another way, they wanted expert power. When we offered them power, they seized it.

Shifting Power into the Hearts of Children

From these and other experiences, we have developed a greater understanding of how to increase the impact of technology in the classroom. Our first recommendation is to place the power of technology squarely in the hands of the children. Making selected children experts in specific areas of technology maximizes the children's power. Over time, each child can be an expert in some area. Just as we have such classroom jobs as animal caretaker or line leader, we can also have hardware, word-processing, or database experts. All the children we worked with jumped at the opportunity to be an expert, and in almost every case they exceeded our expectations. They learned quickly, were generous with their time with peers, and typically behaved professionally in completing their expert responsibilities.

There is one area of need with "experts." Most of the children we worked with wanted to manipulate the hardware instead of leading their peers to learn. We spent as much time coaching the experts in social skills as we did teaching them the technical aspects of their expertise. Often, we instituted the rule of "sitting on your hands." The experts could not touch the equipment; they had to coach their peers without using their hands. We believe the social learning of how to handle expertise is as important as technical learning.

Our most successful activities were those in which children generated authentic products -- products they valued. Most of the students accepted the journal-writing activity as valuable. The picture-taking activity fulfilled a specific purpose that the students wished to accomplish. Connecting children's learning with outcomes that they perceive as valuable increases their engagement. It gives them reasons to learn; the purpose touches their hearts.

Our positive experiences with children and teachers led us to several preliminary conclusions. The first realization is that the use of technology will be more effective when teachers facilitate learning and concentrate on essential academic skills and concepts. Teachers do not need to become technology tutors. The second realization is that students can and will accept the responsibility to be the classroom and school "technology experts." The role of student expert appears to have positive effects beyond learning about the technology. The third realization is that expertise creates opportunities for students to become brilliant. Brilliance is the child's power of the heart.

Finally, it is important for teachers to recognize that not all children will make a strong connection with technology. We should not only recognize this but embrace and celebrate students' unique interests. Our children's individuality and diversity are worth honoring. It is not important that every child be brilliant with technology. It is important that every child be brilliant in his or her own way.

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Kappan Professional Journal

Last updated 11 November 1998
URL: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kmau9902.htm
Copyright 1998 Phi Delta Kappa International