Clueless

Last week, one of the stories that hit the social media was the iPad debacle encountered in California. The iPads that had been handed out to students had to be recalled because they had managed to hack their devices to play games and access social networking sites. This has led many to question the effectiveness of this programme.  People, however, seem to be questioning more the hasty distribution of these iPads rather than the imposed  restrictions. I believe the latter is the one that ought to be questioned.

Imposing filters on gadgets that had been distributed to meet the needs of 21st century education is indeed counterintuitive. I do agree that students struggle to find a balance healthy balance between leisure and duty, but the imposition of filters will only send mixed messages to students. On one hand students are being given a majestic tool that could be used for different purposes yet they are not being allowed to use it in a "real world" context.  In the real world people iPads are multipurpose; they are used to access Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and games sites. Students have to be trained to be disciplined and responsible for their learning while taking advantage of such tools. Filtering websites does not address this issue at all, if anything it continues to alienate kids from education.  This is yet another example of how the people who should be driving education are usually the ones who are the most oblivious to it.

Implementation of technology in education is a must; however, this has to come with a vision.  Last year, during the national elections in my beloved Malta, the two competing political parties pledged that they'd give out iPads to primary school students if elected. Indeed, the implementation of technology that transforms learning should be celebrated irrespective of the political motive behind it. Nevertheless, if Maltese students end up doing repetitive Math problems and answering comprehension questions on online textbooks, then all that investment would have been one pathetic blunder.

Many people who are in education unwittingly mistake the use of innovative technology in the classroom as THE innovation in education. Little do they understand that technology without a sound pedagogy is a car without a driver. If we truly believe that the use of technology alone will solve all the issues in education then we are setting our children up for failure.  As a result, when big undertakings fall flat due to their shortsightedness, they fuel the noxious skepticism of those who are  still stuck in the 20th century and refute a much needed change in education.

In his SAMR model, Dr. Puentedura makes a clear distinction of the different purposes of technology in education, the most effective one being for the redefinition of learning. iPads can be used for students to contact experts using Skype and Twitter, they can upload videos using Youtube, and create websites and blogs. These tools would indeed transform and contextualize learning making it applicable to the real world.  Ironically, these same tools are deemed as a hindrance and are being filtered from children.