Seven stupid mistakes teachers make with technology
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 06:56PM stupid (adjective): given to unintelligent decisions or acts m-w.com
Stupid is not my favorite word. It sounds mean and harsh and ugly. But after reading that according to Newsweek that 25% of employees visit porn sites from work, and that the adult video industry claims hits on porn sites are highest during the work day*, it was truly the only term that seems to fit this sort of human behavior. I don't have any overwhelming objections to pornography per se. But perusing it at work? That's stupid.
I use stupid under fairly constrained conditions. To me, a stupid act has a degree of willfulness about it and is serious. Making an error once is ignorance; making the same mistake multiple times is stupidity. Unfortunately, I see stupid acts and beliefs related to technology in schools all the time.
These would be my nominees for the most stupid things** a teacher can do related to technology...
1. Not backing up data. "You mean having two copies of my files on the hard drive doesn't count as a backup?" The first time a teacher loses his/her precious data my heart breaks. The second time, well, stupidity ought cause some suffering.
2. Treating a school computer like a home computer. Teachers who use a school computer to run a business, edit their kid's wedding videos, or send tasteless jokes to half of North America (including that fundamentalist English teacher down the hall) are being stupid. Teachers who take their computers home and let their kids hack on them are being stupid. Teachers who don't own a personal computer for personal business deserve to get into well-deserved trouble.
3. Not supervising computer-using students. It is really stupid to believe Internet filters will keep kids out of trouble on the Internet. For so many reasons. Even the slow kids who can't get around the school's filter, can still exploit that 10% of porn sites the filter won't catch if they choose to do so. They can still send cyberbullying e-mail - maybe even using your email address. Or they can just plain waste time.
4. Thinking online communication is ever private. Eventually everyone sends an embarrassing personal message to a listserv. I've heard of some tech directors who get their jollies reading salacious inter-staff e-mails. You school e-mails can be requested and must be produced if germane to any federal lawsuits. Even e-mails deleted from your computer still sit on servers somewhere - often for a very loooong time. Think you wiped out your browsing history? Don't bet that that is the only set of tracks you've left that show where you've been surfing. Your Facebook page will be looked at by the school board chair and your superintendent and principal know who the author of that "anonymous" blog is. Not assuming everyone can see what you send and do online is stupid.
5. Believing that one's teaching style need not change to take full advantage of technology. Using technology to simply add sounds and pictures to lectures is stupid. Smart technology use is about changing the roles of teacher and student. The computer-using student can now be the content expert; the teacher becomes the process expert asking questions like - where did you get that information, how do you know it's accurate; why is it important, how can you let others know what you discovered, and how can you tell if you did a good job? The world has changed and it is rank stupidity not to recognize it and change as well.
6. Ignoring the intrinsic interest of tech use in today's kids. Kids like technology. Not using it as a hook to motivate and interest them in their education is stupid.
7. Thinking technology will go away in schools. The expectation tha "This too shall pass" has worked for a lot of educational practices and theories. Madeline Hunter, Outcomes-Based Education, whole language, and yes, some day, NCLB all had their day in the sun before being pushed aside by the next silver bullet. (I think that metaphor was a bit confused. Sorry.) But it is stupid to think technology will go away in education. It isn't going away in banking, medicine, business, science, agriculture - anywhere else in society. Thinking "this too shall pass" about technology is pretty stupid.
That was fun. What would make YOUR list of the top stupid mistakes you've seen teachers make with technology?
Oh, I am not above making stupid mistakes as well. Maybe this posting was one of them...
Reader Comments (38)
Thanks for a great post! I had a laugh reading it, but it also made me think. Here in Sweden our schools are greatly underdeveloped and we are facing a huge challenge - be a part of the modern society or the old ditto.
Thanks!
Doug-
GREAT Post. How about adding this one...
Printing ALL your important email on paper.
Previously I worked in a school library that had a laser printer for the whole floor. Teachers would print out an email that had a message to call someone with a phone number! Either write it down or take your computer to the phone! Most emails I file in my mail software if it's important. I rarely print email.
Here's another: How about teachers who NEVER delete emails from their InBox or their Sent Box - then wonder why their email keeps crashing!!!!
Thanks, Cathi. Sounds like our districts may have some similar teachers!
All the best,
Doug
Technology is a fantastic tool, but like any tool it has to be used correctly to be effective. We rely upon software and web sites to take up the slack in many childrens' educations because we know that today's children are interested by technology. Unfortunately, we forget the most important accessory to that computer. . . the teacher. I don't feel that technology is any more effective than traditional methods without the mentoring of a caring person, guiding the child at the mouse.
I would add that a stupid mistake would be letting students use your school computer without supervision. Bad move- especially if you have passwords saved to automatically appear.
Good foibles to avoid. As a classroom teacher of a bunch of rambunctious 6th graders, it is a constant balancing act to incorporate technology or to do "hands-on" creative activities. They like both.
Top of my list would be...
1. Using technology just for keyboarding!
2. How about locking down computers so no one can use them for anything but e-mail and surfing the net?.
more dumb moves:
Not having plan B when you are doing a technology-rich lesson.
Forgetting that it is developmentally appropriate for your barely-supervised teen students to use technology as social toys rather than learning tools.
Thinking that "digital natives" come from The Land of Evaluation and Good Judgment.
Planning for your students to save documents to servers with 7 nonintuitive steps, when you are saving to Google Docs with one step.
Hmmmm - I think this topic is wayyyy too open-ended.
Hi Mac,
I appreciate the additions. I am not sure we can blame teachers for the second mistake however!
All the best and thanks for the comment,
Doug
Hi Melissa,
Overestimating the maturity of the users (your number 3) should have made the original list! Thanks. I like the last one too – I’m afraid our school is somewhat guilty of such procedures as well.
Thanks for the comments!
Doug
The technology won't go away, but it will be more and more important with every passing day and that's because it greately ease our work, for example a few months ago I discovered www.standardstoolbox.com and the tools there helped me a lot with allmy teacher needs.
GREAT stuff! My worst mistake (besides a few "flaming" e-mails sent to administrators, guess I should be glad I still have a job) was that long ago I backed up a bunch of important files of my own creative work (music compositions) to a REWRITABLE CD - guess what, it crashed. Over the years I've slowly recovered some of it by discovering some on other (non-rewritable) CDs, & finding paper copies & scanning them back into the same software that I used to create them (VERY time consuming because of the voluminous post-scan editing involved).
I do have to take issue w/ a couple of people who say that teachers who are already using an inquiry-based style of teaching really don't have to do much (or any) adjusting in their teaching in order to integrate technology into their classrooms - nothing could be further from the truth. The TRANSFORMATIVE ability of using technology (see the Grappling's Spectrum: http://www.bjpconsulting.com/files/MAPPSpectrum.pdf) is what separates using technology from ALL other teaching techniques, because - listen carefully - technology enables students to do things that would NOT BE POSSIBLE to do otherwise.
For example - Mr. Inquiry Teacher of the Year has his students research a certain time period in history, has students create their own fictional story that demonstrates a critical issue of their own choosing from that time period, then the students put on a performance of their story/ w/ costumes, etc. They write reflection papers afterwards, self-evaluating their work, etc. Want to make that lesson more "tech-y"? Great, let's make a movie! Simple, right? Just turn on the camera & film what we've already been doing. Then we can post our movie on our class website. Now, we've done "technology", right? NOT.
Making a movie that truly uses technology in a transformative way involves a whole range of issues that go way beyond writing a story & putting on a performance. There are choices to be made about camera angles, editing choices, film effects, addition of music, overall tone of the movie, etc. that all have a significant effect on the meaning of the story. Students (& teachers) who learn how to use these factors effectively are exploring a way of presenting information in a way that simply would not be possible without the use of the camera, movie editing software, & making artistic, even ethical decisions of how to use those technological tools. If those technological tools are not used in an informed manner, students will end up putting forth meanings that they didn't intend.
There. Sorry 'bout rambling, & overuse of caps - I'm not real familiar w/ html tags. Guess that's my next learning curve.
Thinking that communication via technology is any different than communicating any other way.
In my experience, teaching teachers through workshops and teleseminars, most, esp. k-6, are woefully ignorant of technology--including how to search the Web, using email with common sense, and other simple things. I frequently get emails from teachers asking when I'm giving a workshop in their city but they don't bother to tell me where they live. Much less what kind of workshop they're interested in. They seem to miss the point that email is an international way of communicating. Come on! This isn't rocket science. And tt's not going away. Get with the program. If teachers knew more about technology, how to use it in the classroom wouldn't be a challenge.
HI Mary Jo,
I certainly agree with your statement that technology will not be going away in schools, if for no other reason that it isn’t going away in the rest of society.
While it does seem like one gets one’s share of “dumb” questions and actions from teachers, I have to say most of the teachers I work with have latched on to technology for at least their own professional use, if not for teaching.
I have to keep reminding myself that teachers have a lot more on their plates than just technology.
All the very best,
Doug
If only the technology lecturer in my DipEd would read this list. (sigh)
I would add that backing up is good but backing up and using RAID is better.
When I worked for a publisher I was asked to recommend the design for a new computer system. The boss was angry that I had asked for redundancy as he saw this as a waste of money. Six months later the same person called me to thank me because one of the drives had failed and the business would have been crippled had we not installed a RAID system.
RAID can save your bacon.
Hi John,
We use raid arrays here as well. Works great until multiple drives fail at the same time. Happily I've only seen that happen once.
I am definitely a belt and suspender kind of guy when it come to backups!
What is DipEd?
All the best,
Doug
I love this! What is so funny to me is that it was written in 2008! Amazingly enough, too many people are STILL doing all the stupid things you mentioned. Thanks for a good laugh!
This is one of the best articles I have read. I agree people can do stupid things on the internet including Facebook. I have read some things on Facebook that I couldn't believe a professional teacher would write. My advice is don't make your facebook accessible to everyone.
Hi Barbara,
It's taken awhile for teachers (and the general public) to figure this out, but we are all getting our online privacy act together! Thanks for the kind words.
Doug