Go to any airport today and count the number of young people reading a book. Now count the number of young people whose thumbs fly over, or who are intently staring into, some kind of handheld device. What do we need to know, to do, to even think about, when they show up in our classrooms — virtual or on-ground — as adults a mere 10 years from now?
Let’s take a moment to put 10 years into perspective. Ten years ago, there was no iPhone and thus no apps; no iPad; and it wasn’t until 2008 that laptops eclipsed the number of desktops sold. Five years from now, according to the venerable NMC Horizon Report, we will be wearing technology as some new kind of bling, relying on devices whose batteries compete with the Energizer Bunny, and we will be able to rapidly prototype not only an online course but also instantaneously replicate our afternoon daydream into a physical model.
So, will technology subsume us as faculty, administrators, trainers and mentors? Only if we let it.
In 10 years, the best use of technology will be — as it is today and as it was 10 years ago, 100 years ago, and even almost 1,000 years ago (think: book) — in how we, as real, live individuals, use it to teach. If we use it too much, we will bore ourselves and our students. If we do not use it to teaching and learning advantage, we will seem to be outdated. Ten years from now, as we do today, we will need to find technological balance and we will need to stay current.
But what is current when technology changes almost daily? Current is a state of mind. Believing that those soon-to-be 30-somethings are going to throw away their smartphone for a book is futile. “Current” is knowing what technology is available and how we, each of us, can or should use it — or not use it. It wasn’t the app that killed the lecture. We did. We killed it with PowerPoint.
What is balance when technology changes daily? Balance means knowing what works for what we are teaching and for what we want the students to learn. Can biology be better taught through virtual reality? Are small-group discussions, either in person or through an online meeting, better than having everyone read a tedious journal article and spit back its contents? The most immediate example of imbalance, in my opinion, is the massive open online course (MOOC). This concept, according to most pundits, is going to take over all of education. Those budding adults in airports will now be transfixed by quantum physics made understandable in 12 weeks of, yes, lectures and, yes, readings and, yes, pouring over thousands of posts a day. This is not going to happen. But what if we actually used snippets of many MOOCs as a backdrop to ask probing questions and to build on the ideas, experiences and concepts our adult students bring to what we are teaching?
Conjuring up ways to develop curiosity and instill lifelong learning will be our mission 10 years from now, as it will be 100 years from now. The most effective way to teach with technology is simply to teach effectively.
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