One of my favorite expressions to rail against when I was a campus instructional technologist and teacher, was, “Idiot-proof technology.” That’s right, we want technology so simple, so easy to use that we can take the teacher out of the equation altogether. For me, this was the opposite of appropriate tech use in the classroom. For me, it was summed up with the quote:

Hardware without software is just junk, but software without teaching is just noise.

I like this quote because it reminds me that the teacher is essential. That teacher may be another person somewhere in the world, or the person sitting next to you in, or standing at the front of, class, but regardless, it’s great to have someone that will be willing to learn with you. Pre-fabricated curriculum is useful to new teachers, but they may also perpetuate the idea that teachers aren’t instructional designers…and the dangerous side-effect is that soon enough, teachers are considered too dumb to do anything except teach someone else’s curriculum.

Usually, the term “idiot-proof” came up in regards to integrated learning systems (ILS)–such as Successmaker, Plato, Compass Learning products–that would assess children below grade level, then the reports would show dramatic progress at the end of the year. And, it was such a believable lie, such a big lie, that school districts continue to swallow it, like dogs with poisoned meat. I often have to spend time to educate against this approach, but often, find that it comes about because we want to believe that technology can save children when used in this very top-down, traditional way…and we just happen to have a lot of money (e.g. Reading First Grant) to throw at the solution. This is especially worrisome when such ILSs are approved by the federal government as viable solutions.

It was then, with great interest, that I read the following* on the TESL List (Teachers of English as a Second Language):

The danger of ready-made textbooks is that they can seem to absolve teachers of responsibility. Instead of participating in the day-to-day decisions that have to be made about what to teach and how to teach it, it is easy to just sit back and operate the system, secure in the belief that the wise and virtuous people who produced the textbook knew what was good for us. Unfortunately this is rarely the case.” (Swan, 1992)

…explained from another perspective: “According to this view, we need teaching materials to save learners from our deficiencies as teachers, to make sure, as far as possible, that the syllabus is properly covered, and that exercises are well thought out, for example. This way of thinking might lead, at one extreme, to the idea that the “best” teachers would have ‘teacher proof’ materials that no teacher, however deficient, would be able to teach badly with.” (Allwright,1981)

I find that uses in technology that school districts are prone to are controllable, inflictable, and almost always involve idiot-proofing teaching…with the premise that the teacher is the idiot. After all, experimentation isn’t learning…we have to stick to accepted methods of instruction. If only that were true. We need to experiment, not because some can learn in spite of canned curriculum, but because we’re human beings who need to be involved in life-changing learning. is that the kind of learning you’re involved in? Is that the kind of learning YOU facilitate?

References

*NOTE: As cited by Dave Kees – davekees@davekees.com – www.davekees.com – skype: davekees in email:

*Swan, Michael 1992. The textbook: Bridge or wall? Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching 2(1):33

*Allwright, R. L. 1981. What do we want teaching materials for? ELT Journal 36(1):6

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