SEDUCED BY TECHNOLOGY

WHAT CAN RESISTANCE TO TECHNOLOGY TELL US?

Douglas Orme

10 minute version

What Resistance Can Tell Us…

1. Resistance as informative1. E.g. resistance in ESL Methodology

2. Valid Objections Resistance Points To3. Context: The Perfect Storm4. How To Stay The Course

What Resistance Can Tell Us… Rush to: integrate technology in

teaching

Rush to: resist technology How can opposites co-exist?

Question: resistance as informative?

What Resistance Can Tell Us… Dogme as resistance:

Teaching Unplugged: Dogme in English Language Teaching

Scott Thornbury & Luke Meddings Review: Tania Pattison Contact magazine (Vol 36, No 3) wiki

What Resistance Can Tell Us…“A teaching movement set up by a group

of Englishteachers who challenge what they

consider to be anover-reliance on materials and technical

wizardry incurrent language teaching. The emphasis

on the hereand-now requires the teacher to focus on

the actuallearners and the content that is relevant to

them” (p17)

What Resistance Can Tell Us… Dogme/other resistance ≠ integrate vs. reject tech.

Rather re-focus on the central pedagogical question:

“Meddings and Thornbury stress that Dogme is notanti-technology per se; … It’s just that much of the time,technology simply isn’t necessary for language learning.Where it is used, technology should be used as a supportfor sound educational principles, not as an end in itself”

(p. 21).

What Resistance Can Tell Us… Connect to resistance:“My own sense is that to some extent, the

appeal ofDogme lies in the fact that it presents an

“enough,already!” response to the technical

wizardry …constantly being thrust upon us, and the

accompanyingimplications that if we are not using blogs,

podcasts,wikis, and all the rest of it, then our

teaching must bedeficient” (p. 21)

What What Resistance Can Tell Us…

How should we judge teaching?

Teaching best judged by pedagogy we adopt…

and not the tools we use to implement pedagogy

Others? Outcomes, benchmarks, reflection, etc.

What Resistance Can Tell Us… 4 Valid Objections Resistance Points to:

1. Teaching best judged by principles & goals of pedagogy –not means used

2. Insight: teaching to focus on students, context & content

3. Awareness: tech. pushed by interested parties

1. Coordinators, principals, tech. coms4. Awareness of misleading discourse around

tech.

What Resistance Can Tell Us… Misleading Discourse/Rhetoric/Hype

Jeff Young, Chronicle (2010, on wiki)

Cue scary music… “Reaching The Last Technology Holdouts At The Front Of The Classroom”

What Resistance Can Tell Us…The Argument: Medical science uses latest tech.

diag/trtmnt. If not = malpractice Dr.s use latest tech/sci. Shouldn’t Ts? If you don’t use tech. in your teaching,

then…

What Resistance Can Tell Us…But… teaching comes in part from values-

based choices about principles of practice & choice of methods

Empirical? 1 book, and go home – indigo.ca

Theory choice = how we make sense of world + values

What Resistance Can Tell Us… Has tech. served us well in medicine?

$ spent vs health outcomes Trtmnt/Prvntn balance may be off:

MRI/walk?

Medical Model for Education? If T=Dr & S=Patient

Is S sick? deficient? Autonomous? Teachers = doctors? (respect + $ ok!)

What Resistance Can Tell Us… Context: What/Who is pushing tech?1. Funders, employers: Do w/2. Media-saturated world – Ss may seem

to demand “technical wizardry” (attract, stim, jpm)

3. PD may over-normalize the use/prev. tech

1+2+3 perfect storm – push off course

What’s the course? You decide, but theory/values

Conclusion Technology not be simply thrust upon us…

Successful seduction only w/active coop of seduced!

Get into bed with technology, but w/ eyes wide open.