by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

Mel Riddile recently lamented the failure of educators to embrace the use of technology.  His angst was ignited by a comment in an article published in the New York Times.

“In a recent New York Times article, Matt Richtel put it bluntly. ‘Schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning.”

Dr. Riddile agrees that technology is not having the intended impact in education but for very different reasons.

“Because we are so used to "making do" with less, we are actually doing technology integration a disservice by allowing people like Matt Richtel to believe that we have fully implemented technology in our schools when, in actuality, scarce resources are forcing most schools to tinker around the edges giving lip service to technology integration without the tools needed to make it happen school wide.”

His final point is that items that are designed to augment classroom instruction fall into one of three categories:  novelty, nicety or necessity.   The argument is simple—until technology becomes a necessity in the daily activities of a course, it will never reach its full potential. 

An example of a "necessity"

As a math teacher from 1968 until 2008 I was witness to the evolution of the real “new math”.  Not that stuff that was talked about in the run-up to the Apollo Space Program.  I am talking about the introduction of the graphing calculator into the high school classroom.   It began as a trickle when a few Casio and Texas Instruments products began to appear in the classroom.  But as the capabilities of these hand-held devices became clearly evident, math educators began to take notice.  More than fifteen years ago Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia decided to invest millions of dollars to ensure that every Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 student in the district had 24/7 access to a TI-83 during the entire school year. 

Weighing priorities

The use of any technology has downsides.  “Spell Check” has created a nation of poor spellers.  Doctors are no longer the only folks with illegible handwriting.  Automatic dialing has left most of us helpless when trying to remember a phone number in an emergency.  And don’t get me started on passwords.  So not surprisingly the influx of graphing calculators met significant resistance.   They quickly diminished the ability of students to mentally do fundamental calculations.  Many parents and teachers were appalled.  The comment “We are turning out a generation of math illiterates” was spoken in a variety of forms.  But the reality was just the opposite.  Instead of producing students who could do simple arithmetic in their heads, we were now capable of creating mathematicians. 

In my own classroom I was observing the profound difference such technology could make.  Instead of spending three weeks learning how to find a logarithm, students were spending that time using logarithms to solve complex math problems.  Graphs that would require a class period to create were now instantly available to analyze and utilize.  Topics once considered too complex to be discussed were now routine work.   The entire subject matter had been revitalized.  Real world problems were not only being solved they were being demonstrated on a screen.  For years I had been envious of the power of the lab experiment in Science classrooms; that was no longer the case.  Students in my classroom were launching rockets, discussing world population growth and determining the probability of winning the lottery without ever leaving their seats. 

Questions, questions, questions

The implementation of any technology always raises concerns.  For many parents the fear of the calculator was that it would somehow allow students to do well without working hard—in essence level the playing field for unmotivated students.  Actually, the converse was true.  Virtually every technology favors the individual who knows what they are doing.  The phrase “garbage in, garbage out” is appropriate in this conversation.  I would explain this situation to students and parents by saying, “A calculator is really quite stupid.  It will do whatever you tell it to do.  It will never tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘Are you really sure you want to input that?’”  But I could assure them that in the right hands it could perform mathematical magic.   

After a few years I became downright strident in my support.  When unenthused parents would ask “But what happens when the batteries die in the calculator?” I would answer “Buy new batteries.”

Use it or lose it

In the typical math class at my school the graphing calculator became a critical part of the daily lesson.  It was utilized to intensify the curriculum, bring the real world into the classroom and produce accurate and meaningful work.  By introducing 21stcentury technology into math, the course became alive and intriguing for 21st century students.  Regardless of the price tag it was an educational bargain.  And more importantly, it had, in the words of Mel Riddile, become a necessity.   The incorporation of the graphing calculator in math should serve as a role model for the rest of school-based technology.