Teachers as Customers?: Technology, IT, and the Classroom

Last week, as I was getting ready for the beginning of a new school year, I heard an interesting reference that got me thinking; "Faculty are a different type of customer in IT's [Information Technology's] eyes." I'm sure that I have heard this claim in various versions before but this time it stuck with me. To be sure, there is some truth in the statement. Students certainly have different needs from faculty. For instance, students will probably want to stream more media than faculty and faculty will probably need more complex software (e.g., SPSS) than students. Furthermore, there are often many more students with many more mobile devices than there are faculty or faculty mobile devices. In a sheer numbers perspective, student bandwidth needs burden the system more than faculty needs. Then again, when faculty need technology on campus, it is often for student learning needs, whereas students may absorb more bandwidth for various academic and social concerns.

On its face, then, faculty may indeed be viewed as a different kind of customer than students, especially when it comes to technology. What struck me about the claim I heard last week was not the logic but that word, customer. But why was I so hung up on that word? In all likelihood, it probably stuck with me because I am used to the title "user" being attributed to IT issues and service. I am certainly a user of technology but am I a customer? And if I am a customer, am I a different type of customer than my students?

The word customer comes from Middle English. It was used to describe an economic transaction, often brief, involving customs.  When we travel through customs, let's say at an airport, we report goods that we have brought from outside the country and, at our interaction with the customs official, sometimes pay a tax for bring those items with us. In a store, a similar economic transaction occurs when we purchase items that we want. In both cases, this is a single-point transaction. One customer takes or brings goods to an interaction with one seller or customs official. In many ways, this is different from a client, who has a longterm, often complex relationship with the seller.

So, am I a customer? I certainly hope not! I use technology continuously throughout the data, often on multiple devices at once. If IT views me as a customer, then at least one side of the relationship (theirs) is experiencing a relationship that is a "one and done" deal, whereas I'm looking for a longterm commitment (maybe without the long walks on the beach!).

But maybe this is the problem that so many faculty have with their IT departments. Like any relationship, when both sides differ in their expectations, conflict occurs. I wager that many faculty want a long-term, give and take relationship with their IT departments, whereas many IT departments, often drowning in a sea of request slips, are viewing interactions as "in process" or "complete" transactions. Maybe we need to explore some kind of IT/Faculty version of marriage counseling.

As for the differences between faculty and students, then, it seems that as customers, students will always win the attention of IT departments. Simply by their sheer numbers, they can create more requests for single-point transactions than any faculty group might be able to. However, as clients, may faculty as a little more important. In faculty, IT can find a group that has a bit more staying-power and institutional knowledge. Most of us certainly hope that we will be around for more than 4 years.

Am I a customer? I guess that depends. I would hope that my IT department and yours views you as a client, whether you are a student or faculty member. In this model, the relationship between the user and IT seems more like an investment, where both sides can learn from each other. Even just four years can provide a lot of learning experiences when the relationship is consistent, not viewing issues as single-point transactions. So, as we return to school, let's make an effort to get to know our IT departments as "an individual;" maybe we can even buy them a drink. And let's become their clients, not their customers.

Breaking Canaries from their Cages

It's back to school time and the rise in teachers' anxiety seems to be running a bit higher than normal. Of course, there are the back to school jitters that never seem to go away from our days as students. Maybe these jitters are a good thing. I had one professor tell me that you will know it is time to retire when you don't get a little nervous about the first day of school. Since I'm still getting a little nervous, I guess I should keep going!

Teacher anxiety is also high because of the political climate, one that has been particularly harsh on teachers. Like many in the US, teachers are overworked and underpaid. Unlike many professionals in the US, they are often viewed as less than capable and in need of constant development and reform. Claudia Swisher illustrates this anxiety quite well in her article Frog in the Pot, Canary in the Mine, or Rats from the Ship? In short, she questions why teachers don't attempt to take more control of their destiny, fighting against politicians, philanthropists, and critics (most of whom have never taught or do not currently teach) who are trying to determine how to training, assess, and direct teachers. In her analogy, she questions whether (1) teachers are the proverbial frog in the pot, adjusting little by little to the warmer waters until they are cooked, (2) canaries in a mine, sounding the alarm, often when it is too late, or (3) rats on a ship, most of whom are leaving the profession in droves. Although she is retiring soon, she still sees herself as a canary, hoping that her calls are not too late and advocating for other canaries to squawk as well.

Although I truly appreciate her thoughts, I'm not entirely convinced that any of Swisher's analogies quite fit the current state of education and education reform well. More specifically, I'm not sure why the canaries aren't trying to figure a way out of their cages while squawking at the same time. Indeed, in many ways, teachers are "in a cage." For example, politicians control the money that flows into education systems. While this provides a certain check on overspending, the situation requires educators to justify their expenses to those who often don't know what they are talking about. Another example of "caging" can be seen in the development of high-stakes standardized tests that most educators rightly view as an impediment (often a detriment) to deeper learning.

While these caging mechanisms are certainly things to squawk about, there is also the caging effect of public opinion. Here, unlike the examples of political/economic caging, educators have a bit more leverage, if they choose to use it. To be sure, there will almost assuredly always be detractors, those who think that teachers just aren't doing a good enough job. However, we have enabled a culture of critics as well. Let me explain...

Over the last couple weeks, I have repeatedly seen my Facebook friends post messages complaining about going back to school. They talk about how much they will miss their vacation, how much they hate their job, and how they will spend their "at Wednesday" of freedom. While I understand their sentiment, most of America doesn't. In fact, most of America (at least the luck ones that still have a job in this economy) hasn't had "a Wednesday of freedom" since they were in school themselves. In the court of public opinion, these comments amount to the "teachers as whiners" and "teachers don't have a real job" labels that most educators resent a great deal. Ironically, through unthoughtful uses of social media, I fear we are perpetuating this perception.

How is this perception illustrated in culture? One recent way these perceptions are realized is through back to school advertisements. My "favorite" is Old Navy's commercial, where Jenny Garth is described as a teacher in great jeans. Here teachers, both male and female, are seen as older versions of the children they teach, teddy bears and all. Certainly, most people in business might say, these teachers don't have real jobs; they don't even need to get dressed up for work! If this commercial can be used as an example of the publics perception of education and educators, we have fallen a long way from the respected professionals that Swisher describes her ancestor-teachers as.

I agree with Swisher; we, as educators, need to squawk about injustices to our students and our profession. We need to take back some of the power that others have ripped away from us because they don't view us as professionals. At the same time, however, we need to free ourselves from the cage that we have built, the cage where we think it is ok for others to view us as less-than-professional. We need to stop talking about our "last Wednesdays of freedom," start talking about new scholarship and our own scholarly work, and dress in nothing less than what a "professional" should look like. While I may agree with you if you argue that some of these suggestions are cosmetic, I would also argue that they drive perception. And as we all know, perception is reality.

Dividing Classroom Time: Teaching about Good New Media Use

I hate the notion of the "teacher's toolbox!" I'm not sure if saying that means that I will lose my teacher's license but I'm willing to take the risk. The teacher's toolbox concept has been around for awhile, a playful euphemism describing all the different techniques teachers might use to help their students learn. Indeed, there are certainly some truths that the phrase implies. For example, newer teachers have fewer "tools" with which to work. Teacher education can never be long enough or thorough enough to enable teacher candidates to master every tool. Like any profession, the real learning comes from the "doing" in the profession. This phrase also correctly implies that there is not one single teaching technique that will work for any particular student, topic, or instructional material. Teachers need to think flexibly about to to present the material in various forms so that all students can access it.

What I think I hate about the "teacher toolbox" concept is that, for all the good things it implies, it also implies that teachers need to "fix" something. As I have worked with pre-service teachers, I realize that many differentiate "toolbox" from "tools." In their minds, toolboxes are filled with supplies to help people fix things. Tools, on the other hand, can be used to fix or create. It is an interesting distinction that I think we as teachers and teacher educators need to be cognizant of when we use such "cute" terms.

More to the point, however, the "teachers toolbox" is often not very specific with regards to the tools in it. For example, we might have a hammer (e.g., "direct instruction"), a saw (e.g., "jigsaw activity"), and/or a screw driver (e.g., "guided reading activity") in our toolbox. What we don't have (or can't see) within our toolboxes is any specificity beyond the types of tools we have. Do we have a Phillip's head screwdriver or a flathead? What type of saw might work best as we work to scaffold students' knowledge? Indeed, one of the biggest, newest, coolest, and least specific tools that we have in our toolboxes is "technology." Rarely do teachers use "technology" (whatever that actually means) as a surgical tool, making small adjustments within a lesson in order to tweek students' understanding. Often, we use it as the Jaws of Life, prying open the motivation and imagination of students that we have a hard time reaching any other way.

As we are continuing to learn how technologies (see how I used the plural here?) can best used effectively in the classroom, we can't afford to make the mistake of generalizing the categories. Within our toolbox, we need to know what types of technologies we have mastery of and how to use each individually and in combination for the best result under the best circumstances. To do this will take time and consistent practice. As youths (and adults) become "one" with their electronic devices, we need to teach about good new media habits in the classroom. On top of everything else that teachers have to do, this can seem like just one more thing that we need to touch upon... but maybe it doesn't have to be.

When I teach students to create lesson plans, I often ask them to create three activities within the Procedures section that drive home the Mastery Objective. Newer teachers often get the first two down and then trip-up on the third; they aren't always sure what to do. One "easy" way of addressing both the issue of a third activity and teaching good media habits is to have one "technology block" per lesson. For example, if I want students to be able to justify a position using supporting evidence from text (one of the Common Core Standards, by the way), then I might ask students to practice this skill with me using a printed article, I might ask them to find a blog post about that topic online to analyze and think about in groups, and then I might ask them to develop their arguments individually. Rather than having a computer lab day (in the traditional sense that a class might spend the whole time there, working on computers), I've integrated blogging (one tool) into my lesson in a very strategic way.

Obviously, time and resources always play a role in the types of tools that any particular teacher can use. In addition, not all lessons will call for the same types of technologies. I think that it is important for use to think about how we can meet students where they are with technologies and be more explicit about the types of tools we have in our "teacher's toolbox."Doing so might allow students to practice good new media habits and increasing the academic rigor of students' media use.

Community as Partnership

Over the last few months, I've been engaged in a research study, trying to better understand the thought processes that civically engaged individuals go through when they are considering how best to act toward a perceived issue. While I'm collecting some excellent data, there are also things that I am learning that don't necessarily pertain to my study questions but as rather useful for us all to consider. One such comment made by one of my participants has had me thinking all week. When I asked her what she thought the biggest asset in the community was, she replied, "The community itself."
Now, I have to admit, when she first said this, I thought that she had possibly misheard the question. How could the community be its own asset? I had been expecting her to list specific local organizations, people, and/or spaces that enabled the community to thrive. Instead, she was defining the whole with the whole. I was a bit confused by all of this until she explained that there was a civic ethos within the community that allowed it to continuously approach issues as a community. Sure, there are organizations, specific people, and places that are important to this work but she adamantly maintained that the community (or at least its sense of civic responsibility) was its biggest strength.
As an argument, this all made a lot of sense to me. But how do you "map" civic responsibility, as we teach students to community map? How do you teach it within the confines of the school day, school curriculum, and state assessments? These were some of the questions on my mind when I began my last lecture of the summer term and when I asked my students, "How do we teach this thing called multicultural education on a consistent basis?" One of my students put it all together quite nicely. He argued that, aside from the strictures of the curriculum and the 46-minute classes, we had to engage our students in the community. We needed to show the students that our diversity is more than an asset; it is who we are and who we are proud to be. In essence, we have to show that we--the whole community--are partners in this thing called community.
As I'm beginning to think about my fall classes, I trying to take what I have learned, both from my study participants and from my students, to heart. Specifically, I'm trying to develop activities and lessons that enable my students to see that the communities of which they are becoming a part of (e.g., their academic communities, the College community, and the local community) are assets unto themselves and that being active in those communities is what we do. I am slowly coming to believe that the more they make connections between their various communities, taking responsibility for their care, maintenance, and improvement, the more they will learn... probably more than any term paper assignment I could ask them to research.

Learning about New Media in Teacher Education

As I've spoken with practicing teachers and pre-service teachers about technology use in education, I've come across two different groups. The first are those who think that everything that is new and innovative is good. These people have little concern that new technology and new media will disrupt our systems of education; in fact, they often are encouraged by this thought. Supporting their argument is a lot of new, qualitative literature on how much students learn through their online interactions (e.g., Ito, Horst, Bittanti, et al., 2008), which occur almost always outside of the school day. In a lot of ways, these data are encouraging, suggesting that adults should just "get out of the way" and let youths learn as much as they can.

The second group of practicing teachers and pre-service teachers that I meet are much more hesitant about technology use. They argue that we need to be much more careful (and thoughtful) about what we teach our students, making sure that we guide youths to use technology as a tool for learning and creating rather than socializing. Interestingly, the people who make this argument often don't seek out ways to integrate technology into their instruction. Maybe they fear the loss of control and structure that comes with any technology integration or maybe they see more value in schools counteracting the "digital culture." These reasons, along with a host of others, coincide with another interesting phenomenon that I've noticed... there are a lot of young teachers that fall into this category. It is not that they are luddites; rather, they often view schooling in a very traditional way, possibly stemming jointly from their own experiences and classroom management fears.

These young teachers, however, exemplify David Buckingham suggests is a gap between in-school activities and out-of-school activities. Separate from the digital divide that separates those students who "have" technology and those who "have not," this divide has created two spheres of education. One sphere is within the confines of traditional schooling. The other sphere is both "real" and virtual, where students learn from their intellectual peers (whether they are all of the same age or not). This division implies that what is learned outside-of-school is not valued within academics. Conversely, it might suggest to some that what is learned inside-school has little value in the real world. Obviously (or at least hopefully), neither is true. However, as the divide widens, more and more students may come to this conclusion. These dueling worlds are not only occurring in the lives of young K-12 students, however; they also seem to be occurring in the lives of our young teachers.

This situation, if it goes unchecked, may have the potential to replicate the problem at best and deep it at worst. So, what might teacher education programs do to address the problem? We professors and older, "non-native" teachers need to consider flipping the power structure in our classrooms. Indeed, we are the experts on some things; our research and practical experiences enable us to evaluate and properly measure what works and what probably won't work in the classroom. We need to recognize, however, that we are not necessarily the experts on how to function within the digital worlds in the same ways that youths are. As an educational community, we need to think deeply about the roles that our teacher candidates can play in co-developing Ed Tech curricula so that we can better support their expert knowledge for their future roles in a variety of educational settings.

Swinging Pendulums

Lately, educators in the New York area have been bristling about their "report card" scores being posted for public view. If you haven't been following this story, K-12 students' aggregate state test scores were posted as a comparison measure for all teachers in New York. Proponents say that this practice helps parents and citizens keep informed about their students' overall progress and hold schools more accountable to student learning. Opponents counter that these scores do not fairly represent the contextual variables "on the ground" (e.g., the number and severity of special education students, funding issues, community troubles, etc.). It is quite an interesting debate!

What I find most interesting is that some teachers have become almost apathetic to these types of accountability measures, reading tea leaves that indicate that the era of No Child Left Behind will soon be ending and that we will return to the days where teachers and principals are charged with holding themselves accountable. Indeed, President Obama has waived a number of states from the strictures of NCLB. The times, they might be a changin'.

I began thinking about the idea of the pendulum swinging back after I read Jessica Lahey's insightful post about The International Community School in DeKalb County, Georgia, home of the largest refugee settlement in the country. The teachers at this school have had extraordinary success at reaching students whose issues span far beyond many of the "problems" that you and I encounter every day.



By focusing on the students "where they are" and working with them in a consistent, caring environment, these students are obviously thriving, even if they are not all going to pass the state standardized test. At a certainly point, that test doesn't seem to matter; this video is a poignant example of that! Interesting Dr. Laurent Dittman, principal of the school, comments that he thinks that the accountability pendulum is swinging back; NCLB will be but a bad dream in a couple of years.

I'm not so sure about that. I usually don't like to speculate about the future; there are too many variables.  However, when I look at the decade-long influence that NCLB has had on public education, I can't help but think that even if the pendulum swings back, the "fixed point" from which it swings has itself shifted. The language of accountability is pervasive in the schools and in the communities. Many companies have made a lot of money creating these tests that they are not likely to simply abandon. Indeed, the idea of a "basic test" of knowledge for all students, even if it is at a state level, has a certain amount of appeal for many stakeholders, including under-represented groups that have seen measurably more success since NCLB's creation than before.

Let me be clear, I think that NCLB should get an A for concept and an F for implementation. I think that making teacher "report cards" public is a mistake; there are way to many variables to make these scores meaningful and informative for the general public, let alone the teachers themselves. I would also welcome the end of NCLB so that teachers can get back to instruction instead of worrying about "the test." I don't, however, think that the pendulum is swinging back to the good ol' days. The "fixed point" has shifted.

Here's the rub, though... if the pendulum is swinging back, educators have the opportunity to get out ahead of it. Now is the time for US to think about what it means to be an accountable professional, leaving the politicians and the fear-mongers who know little about education out of the conversation until WE have deliberated about this topic. What does it mean to be a "public scholar?" What purposes do WE see for education? What roles should WE play in the public sphere?

A Little Privacy, Please!

Academic Herofication vs. Academic A-Teams

To be honest, it still amazes me that I am teaching at the college level. I was the kid who never wanted to go to school, would rush through his homework, and rarely gave a thought to what I was learning until it was test time. Not that I didn't get good grades, mind you; I just never pushed myself to go beyond what was expected. Looking back, I guess it was my senior year of high school that made me realize that I didn't do everything that I could -- I was ranked lucky number 13 in my class but I knew that I had had the potential to do better. That ranking was the AHA! moment, when I realized what all those previous grades had meant, in at least one sense. In college, I was determined to do better... and I did. I quickly learned that "better" meant depth, not necessarily breadth, of knowledge and that I would have to make hard academic choices about my academic focus.

I started thinking about all of this the other day when a friend emailed, asking about whether or not it was appropriate to categorize her research into historical periods; would creating periods essentialize history? My response was that you must set parameters for data to have meaning. Despite the urge to "know how everything connects," an urge I tried to satisfy in my college studies, we simply can't know everything. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have academic communities. Everyone gets to work on their piece of the puzzle so that future generations can synthesize that information into a more comprehensive knowledge. Rarely do we get to see the final product of our actual research.

Bummer, no? Then again, if the questions are really that important, wouldn't a quick answer be a bummer too? James Leowen (2007) talks about "herofication" in Lies My Teacher Told Me, arguing that history textbooks often teach about "heros" when that classification is often dubious. Focusing on "heros" often limits our talk to "great [white, European, heterosexual, nondisabled] men" to the exclusion of others. But can we borrow his terminology to describe what we do as scholars? Do we think of ourselves as "heros" in our quest for knowledge? And if so, what does that do to our worldview?

By now, you may have noticed that I do not think of myself as the hero of any work. Indeed, I was quite happy to learn from some of my students the other day when they discussed the literacies needed to be successful in each of their content areas. If I, the professor, learned from my students, does that make me a bad professor? Theoretically, I think most teachers would say no. But how many times can you think of that you learned from your students? So often, we design easily gradable assignments, where we already know the answer. What if we made it our mission to present problems to our students at all levels of education that pull them into our academic communities? What would that look like?

To be sure, I don't know. I'm trying in some various ways, though. What I suspect is that the "18 year old Jason" would have been more motivated to contribute to such a community rather than (unsuccessfully) chase girls. I suspect that truly aligning coursework with questions in a particular field would spur meaningful progress. Finally, I suspect that our cultural understanding of knowledge would change; we'd see students who were valued for their intelligence and interest rather than for their abilities not to get into trouble. Maybe we should foster Academic A-Teams rather than heros.

Deficit Educational Initiatives

Did you know that:
voter turnout rates have been on a fairly consistent decline since the 1950s;
people get together with their neighbors less often today than they did 30 years ago;
people distrust both their government and their neighbors more today than they did 30 years ago?
Even without citations, most people probably accept these trends as more or less truthful (the source is Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone (2000), if you are interested). Many authors have cited this information as an illustration of how rotten our world has become. They long for the "good ol' days" when everyone knew their neighbors and people generally trusted one another.

I'm not so sure that the "good ol' days" were always as "good" as we remember or as "ol'" as we think they are. In fact, when I went to church yesterday, I saw a lot of people participating and know that many of them are engaged in the church by being on committees, service programs, and the like. I also saw quite a few runners out this weekend and every one of them said hi as I passed them.

To be fair, my arguments above are personal, not backed by any scientific evidence. That being said, other academics have questioned the "decline scenario" as well. What is more striking to me is that whether one takes the "decline scenario" position or the "social stability" position, both use Putnam's findings as a reason why we should teach about democratic engagement. Even though we all "feel" that community was/is important, we don't use that as a baseline for our discussions and educational decisions. Why is that?

I think that we have fallen into a trap regarding educational initiatives. Since the 1983 Nation at Risk report, which argued that American's students weren't up to par compared to Soviet students, we seem to only create new initiatives when there is evidence that things are going horribly wrong. Civic education is just one example; the "No Child Left Behind" as well as the fight against obesity are two more really poignant examples. They have all started from a place of "We [teachers] are failing our children!"

What would education look like if we began with what we would like the future to look like and work towards something? Even in a plurality, I'm sure that there are at least a couple things that we could agree on. How about healthy children who know what various fruits and vegetables look like? How about curious children who want to spend time after school developing experiments based on what they learned in their classes? How about juniors and seniors in high school having the opportunities to explore different careers through focused internships related to their coursework? How about students are equally adept at using their iPhones as they are with meaningful, face-to-face conversations?

Are there more places that we can agree? If so, wouldn't working toward a goal make more sense than trying to play catch-up all the time?