ATTACK OF THE PSYCHO KILLER COMPUTERS

I am perplexed by the fact that I still meet people who think that one day, “technology” is going to rise up and destroy humanity. There is this notion that lying deep within the depths of our computer is a sinister power waiting to unleash its savage plot to destroy all of mankind, to begin its uprising and establishment of a new order of life. It is as if people think our computers are conspiring, plotting, and just simply waiting for their moment to take over humanity. Thanks to the producers of “The Terminator” and “The Matrix”, as well as several other testosterone-filled movies with massive biceps and smash-mouth metal-destroying machines, we think there is something to fear in technology.

But despite all the hype, people are missing a very important point: technology is simply a tool, and there is no group of people with a more-desperate need for clarity on the meaning and use of technology than the people running our schools.

I think of technology as an extension of my will, a lever that allows me to create that which I cannot create with my own hands. I want to contact 30 friends who live in 30 different cities, so I use email. I want to watch 20 football games in 8 hours, so I use a TV and Cable. I want to distribute my ideas to every human being on earth, so I use the internet and make a blog. I am wielding these tools and I am telling the tools to do something for me. “Technology” is simply the medium through which I act on my will.

Every IT person knows that the biggest reason for a computer not doing what you want it to do is because of “operator error”. This means that the problem is not with the computer, it is the incorrect usage by the person who is using the computer. You see, technology responds to inputs. You give it an input, and it produces an output based on algorithms and pre-defined processes. A computer almost never “messes up” because the algorithm never changes. When is the last time you typed 60+18 in your calculator and got a number that was not 78? The fact of the matter is that a problem with a computer or a piece of software almost always lies in what you are telling it to do. How the technology processes the inputs does not change, which means that practically the only variable responsible for creating a desired output is the input. And who controls the input? YOU DO. If you want to make chocolate chip cookies, and you put bronze pennies in the batter instead of chocolate chips, you should not be shocked when you get metallic cookies instead of chocolate chip cookies. Don't get mad at the oven. Get mad at yourself. (p.s. The next time you yell out loud “this computer is stupid!”, you should pause and reflect because, most likely, what you are really saying is “the person operating this computer is stupid!”)

Recently, someone told me, “I think we use technology too much.” I was quizzical. What does that even mean to say we use technology “too much”? Sure, there are people who sit in front of a TV screen for too long or hack on the internet for too long, but here is my point: THE TECHNOLOGY IS NOT THE PROBLEM! The problem is that this person is a lazy bum and they are sitting in front of the TV, eating popcorn and watching re-runs of South Park until 4am while also playing “World of Warcraft” for 11 hours. The technology is not the problem. It is only the medium through which this person can enact on their desire to be a lazy, lazy bum.

Are you listening? Technology is just a tool. It allows for things to happen, and it is the medium through which our will can be enacted.

There are two “fundamental laws” to technology that you must understand.

1. The immense power of modern technology lies in the fact that it is scalable. Contacting a billion people via email is practically as easy as contacting just one person via email. The difference in energy input is minimal, which means that the tool is scalable. Before the advent of modern technology (phones and the internet, for example), do you think there was a small difference between contacting one person versus one billion? I don’t think so.

2. Modern technology is really good at multiplying a process. Thus, if you have an ineffective process or a bad “initial input”, then you will get an amplified bad “output.” You must learn to eliminate the unnecessary information before you proceed, and your initial conditions need to be meticulously put into place. It’s like Han Solo going into light speed on the Millennium Falcon: you better get your coordinates right before you push the button.

In school systems across America, there continues to be a huge fear amongst teachers that “technology” is somehow a crutch to education. It is viewed as a paltry substitute for “real learning”, which apparently consists of sitting in a desk, taking notes, and reading boring books that were intriguing to Britons 300 years ago. But these schools need to understand that technology isn’t a substitute for learning; rather, it is a medium for learning. And here is a big news flash to anyone who hasn’t observed a 15 year-old outside of the school environment: modern technology is the medium by which our students are learning everyday! Sure, you may not be on facebook, twitter, espn.com, or Xbox Live, but your students are. Your students are learning with technology as a medium, and they are being formed via this medium. While I’m not going to tell you that you MUST use technology in the classroom, please understand that I’m simply following good pedagogy by using technology as a medium for learning in my classroom because it is a medium with which my students are already familiar.

Oh, so you have a lot of technology in your school? Well, before you pat yourself on the back for being a bastion of learning, consider this: in many schools with “technology”, it is not being used as a tool to enhance learning, it is merely being used as a tool to help teachers manage systems. We have desktop software that calculates grades in seconds, programs that display these grades online to help communicate with parents, projectors that allow us to present the same PowerPoint slides year-after-year, and online attendance that allows us to locate students immediately. However, in none of these cases is technology being used to enhance learning! In 90% of the schools across the country, technology is not being used as a medium to promote learning: it is being used as a tool to enhance efficiency and management.

And this is precisely the type of use of technology to fear as teachers! It is not being used to build: it is being used to manage. The gap between how our students use technology versus how our schools use technology, from my perspective, seems to be growing daily. And this can’t be solved by just throwing a bunch of computers and projectors into a school. How you wield the tools is much more important than the type of tools that you have (remember our discussion about the importance of inputs), and teachers who use technology must learn to become more proficient at using these tools to extend learning as opposed to increasing the speed with which they can take attendance.

Now there may be a day in which technology is used to destroy many people, and perhaps all of humanity. But it will not be technology that is making the decision. It will be the decision of a human being to use this tool towards destructive ends. This battle of idiots using tools to destroy and tear down has been going on for quite a while (I did at least understand that point in my history classes), and modern technology only has some new mechanisms to make such destruction happen. But this tool can also be used to create, to build, and to sustain. It is up to humanity to determine how this tool will be used to forge our future.

Am I clear? Technology is not going to be the cause of a global uprising, it can only enable it. And if one day, humanity is ever destroyed due to an uprising of killer CPU’s and Neuronet Processors, I will bet my new Dell laptop that there will be a group of human beings who set it all in motion.
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P.s. If you’re a teacher and you want to learn about this medium, the best place to start is by going to a professional organization (I go to NCTM for math) and start learning from the best. Go to conferences, see how other teachers are using technology to engage in learning, snatch up some lesson plans (I have several posted on this site). If you want to go somewhere, just start walking! It doesn’t do much good to point fingers and talk about how you don’t have money in the budget for technology or how you don’t have the time. Just do something, and you will learn along the way.