Should students have hackable devices?
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 06:02AM Apple shipped 67 million iPads in just 2 years after the product launched. It took 24 years to sell that many Macs, 5 years for that many iPods, and over 3 years for that many iPhones. [Source: Forbes]
In response to Why iPads II, my old friend Peter Rock left a comment about this paragraph from the post:
Say what you want about "proprietary" applications and Apple uber-control over what runs on the devices, the damn things just work. I don't think I've had to trouble shoot my iPad (and I have the first model).
Peter writes:
There's a lot to be said in terms of the educational value between proprietary (why the scare quotes?) and free/open source applications/operating systems. There's also a lot to be said in terms of the educational value of having the freedom to choose what one will run or not run on one's own device. There's also a lot to be said in terms of the educational value of actually doing some troubleshooting instead of seeing it as an obstacle to learning.
Personally, I think every student should have a machine they can hack. Until they do, trying to get an iThing in their hands represents a backward set of values. Hackable hardware and an Internet connection should be the goal.
Peter's comment, for some reason, got me to thinking about the cars I drove in high school and college: a '63 Corvair, a '54 Chevy BelAire, and a '59 Rambler station wagon. If I remember I paid, respectively, $400, $100 and $50 for these vehicles. And whether I liked it or not, I got plenty of chances to troubleshoot these vehicles. I will admit that the experiences - climbing under an old car in junk yard to find a replacement part, skinning my knuckles loosening recalcitrant bolts, and sitting at home or bumming rides instead of out driving to a dance or party - have colored my thinking about the do-it-yourself approach to any technology. How often I wished I just had a car that would reliably get me from point A to point B. And having a computer that just lets me do what I need to get done reliably - research, communicate, edit, or whatever - is my kind of machine.
"Hackable hardware and an Internet connection should be the goal," Peter writes. Is customizing one's computing environment a skill everyone needs? Or is it a distraction that gets in the way of teaching more important skills like communications and information literacy? I guess I know the emphasis I'd like my teachers to place on computer use with my grandsons.
Related to Peter's objections are Gary Stager's in his long and thoughtful reply to the Why iPads II post. One of the power uses that he has kids doing with laptops that cannot be accomplished with iPad is programming. He writes:
These constraints [Apple's limiitations on customizing the iOS and apps] make impossible all of the "knowledge work" I did with kids this week. 3rd graders used formal mathematical language and turtle geometry to create beautiful art, 4th graders built and programmed robotic stuffed animals. 5th graders programmed their own video games while learning complex math, science and computer science concepts, while some classmates figured out how to program the computer to represent any fraction as shaded regions of a circle.
If you a follower of Seymour Papert, this argument needs to be considered. In the hands of the right teacher with a genuine constructivist mindset, with gobs of time and no expectations of student performance on tests, this is indeed a powerful means of teaching. If the kinds of activities Gary describes are common and expected practice in your school, iPads are not the device for you - or at least not the best devices.
But whether Gary likes it or not, Papert's ideology is not mainstream practice in any U.S. school I know. (Not saying it shouldn't be, it just isn't.) If we go back to auto analogy, schools are more focused on helping kids use a car to get from one place to another (driver's ed) rather than design and fix the cars themselves (auto shop). Our district and state)asks for kids who are doing genuine research, writing stories and essays, creating mult-media visuals, accessing and reading high-interest materials, and who are using games to increase their skills and content understandings. When these are the goals, hackability become a distraction.
What Peter's and Gary's comments made me think about was just how critical identifying educational goals are when selecting devices - a task that too few school planners undertake. Start with the task, not with the tool.
Yeah, duh. I know.
Reader Comments (9)
I really think this is a non issue.
40 years ago, perhaps, knowing how to take apart a car was important. Now, you don't even have to know how to shift. Because the important skill is knowing how to drive, not fix.
My kids create their own apps, hack the apps, and stuff, but I dont see that as essential. Remember we have a lot less coders than we have PCs.
So what is wrong with both? Or all three (smart phone, tablet, and laptop / PC)?
Hacking is either the wrong word for the context of this article, or this article is completely inappropriate. "Hacking" implies illegally accessing a network and user information, which not only may hamper network traffic but all other users attempting to access said network for appropriate use. "Hacking a car", from what I interpret based on this article, solely regards the ability of the car to function (whether it starts and moves) - not running other people off the road. If you desire users to have the ability to repair an iPad, that is something entirely different (and defeats the entire Apple premise that "users are stupid and we don't want them breaking our stuff").
Thanks, Brandt. I am not against kids hacking if that is an interest and hobby. I just seems to me there are better uses of kids limited time and school resources.
Doug
Hi Kenn,
I don't think there is anything wrong with both. But with limited budgets, choices need to be made. When "unhackable" technologies are less expensive, differences in values arise.
Doug
Hello, Hello
I believe the definition of hacking this conversation is using would be "to heavily modify the software or hardware of one's own computer system" not the more malicious connotations.
Doug
Understanding how something works is directly related to getting the most out of that tool. If we want our kids to be deep, metacognitive people, we need to let them peek behind the curtain as often as possible. With Apple devices, this simply is not going to happen, since the curtain cannot be pushed aside without voiding the warranty. (Of course, this is true for the physical device, regardless of the manufacturer.)
I am a better driver because I understand, at a basic level, how the accelerator, brakes, transmission, and cooling system of my vehicles work. I am a better teacher and librarian because I understand how users search for information and how information is structured and indexed, both in my library and in the online world.
As I get older, I have become more device agnostic. I really don't care what device students use, as long as it gets the job done. I do, however, care that many educators are jumping on the Apple bandwagon simply because they are easy. Easy to use devices are a double edged sword; kids can effortlessly use them, but do we want their education to be that easy?
Almost everything worth doing is difficult, at least at first.
As educational products grow and develop. do we force the companies and teachers who develop apps and other solutions to do business with Apple? Seems a bit like the beginnings of a monopoly to me...
I've thought about this post for a few days, and while I think that the concept of students having hackable devices is admirable, I don't know that it is realistic or even achievable. One of the most important things about using technology in the classroom is being able to rely on the tools-- hardware and software-- you're using to teach students. For all of the warring between iOS and Android adoption in schools, there is something to be said for having hardware that is reliable and uniform within a school or a classroom. It's already frustrating enough for many to keep the devices they have up to date with the latest software, to ensure that students bring them to school charged and to keep them from being damaged on a day to day basis. What happens when this variable of hacking and modification is introduced to a student or multiple students have hacked or modified their device in a manner than inhibits classroom participation and interrupts instruction time?
When a tablet or laptop doesn't work, is a teacher also responsible for the advanced troubleshooting? Will there be a few loaner devices in the classroom for when a student's tablet doesn't work? How would we prepare teachers for this added responsibility? Will there be one or two crazed tech instructors roaming the hallways every day to put out these small fires? How much time would be taken away from teaching other subjects to deal with this sort of tech adoption? Do we make rules about what parts of the machine can and cannot be modified? And what happens if an expensive component is destroyed and needs replacing? Does the school pay for it or does the student?
We're having a hard enough time seeing adoption of established tech in schools, and with standardized testing schedules... there's so much content to teach and not enough time in which to teach it. While you do say that in the hands of a right teacher, this could be great-- my guess is that there are very few who would be gifted enough to make this sort of course work. As much as educators rail against edtech companies and publishers, there's something to be said about uniform, reliable tech in the classroom, about instructional delivery and learning design. Throwing an initiative like this at a new teacher... ooh. That idea scares me.
Hi Len,
I think I understand your argument - I just don't buy it. As I responded to David, I really don't think understanding how my car (or toaster or cell phone or whatever) necessarily makes me a better driver or communicator.
Another term for "easy" to use is "transparent" meaning technology does not get in the way of what you are trying to accomplish. Maybe because my primary use of tech is communication, I want to just get the article written, the PPT made or the graph created, having to think about the nuts and bolts as little as possible!
Doug
Hi Jessy,
My guess is that you are speaking for 90% of practicing teachers! Thanks for sharing your viewpoint.
Doug
A couple of years ago Bob Moore (ex school CIO now with Dell) delivered a keynote to our CoSN chapter in MA at a CTO Clinic. He very compellingly described the shift in the modern day CTO/CIO position in a presentation title "The Days of the Shade Tree Mechanic are Over" - see a little about it at http://www.ednetinsight.com/news-alerts/announcements/new-monograph-from-2010-cosn-compendium.html - I think his analogy about cars being too complex for the average car owner to take apart and fix applies to computers, too. I also want kids to have a reliable computer that works, and not one they might have to "hack" to keep running.
Hi Jean,
Very timely comment since I am working on a blog post about CTOs in schools. Thanks. I think I responded in an earlier post to Mr. Moore's ideas:
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2010/11/16/the-changing-role-of-the-cto.html
But I will definitely review. I agree with the shade-tree mechanic analogy!
Doug