Technology Changes Everything
For some time, colleagues have suggested that as head of school I should consider creating a blog to create more opportunities for dialogue in the Country Day community. I resisted, not because I’m opposed to blogging, rather I didn’t want to commit to a project and not do it well. As we prepare for another school year, I’ve decided to take the plunge.
“Just thinking . . .” will provide opportunities for me to share ideas I think are important to independent schools. I hope some of the ideas become a catalyst for an exchange of ideas in our school community. For twenty years, one of my great interests has been the impact of media, particularly electronic media, on education and how young people learn. This, combined with a number of new developments integrating technology into the program here at Country Day, suggested technology might be a good place from which to launch “Just thinking . . .”.
I begin with a brief history lesson. The first books created by Gutenberg on his new invention were designed and printed to look like a handwritten manuscript. When his financial partner, Joachim Furst, took a dozen copies of their Bible to Paris to sell, he received a very hostile reception from the book trade guild. The guild hauled Furst and his newly-printed scriptures off to court, convinced that he was in consort with Satan. Furst’s accusers argued that so many identical texts could have been created only with the assistance of the devil. Academics, initially thrilled to find their works in publication, soon grew nervous. The multiplication of texts meant greater access. Greater access translated into their students becoming independent thinkers. Yet, the history of the printed word reveals a concerted effort to limit access to reading. Laws were passed to prevent texts from being printed in the vernacular. Well into the eighteenth century, many European universities even limited undergraduate students’ access to the library to a few hours per week.
The printing press, one of the most important technologies in the history of communication, changed everything -- including our understanding of education. Digital technology is doing the same thing. Today, the pace is radically different. We can post an idea on the Internet, and it can make its way around the globe in a matter of seconds. The availability of knowledge and information, without the constraints of time and distance, is changing everything, including how our students are learning. The rapidity at which data moves around the globe is mirrored by accessibility. A middle school student studying the history of slavery has access to historical sources that would have been available to only a handful of scholars a decade ago. Now, add to the equation that much of this knowledge and information is free. And this is only the beginning.
What makes the change coming to education unprecedented is the dynamic way in which digital technology scales, i.e., faster, cheaper, better. I often reflect on author educator David Warlick’s comment, “For the first time in history our job as educators is to prepare our children for a future that we cannot describe.” As a head of school, I find Warlick’s observation exciting, challenging, fascinating, and sobering. It is because technology clearly changes everything that we stare into a future not yet known. Finding ourselves at this historical moment presents interesting questions and challenges for educators. Here at Miami Country Day School, we seek to meet those challenges head on to ensure our students are best prepared for the future that awaits them.
As the school approaches its 75th year anniversary, the technology committee, comprised of students, faculty and staff from all three divisions, felt compelled to draft a Master Technology Plan to serve as a decision-making guide and provide benchmarks against which progress in this area is measured. The plan itself addresses all areas of technology integration on campus such as instruction, institutional and professional development, enterprise support, and infrastructure. Already, the plan has brought forth wonderful educational opportunities for our students.
Lower school students are able to interact and learn from peers sitting in a classroom halfway around the world through the use of video-conference technology at the Abess Center for Environmental Studies. Next year, the plan calls for a 6th grade 1-1 pilot program, which will place a laptop in every students’ hands so they never have to worry about logging in and out of shared campus computers again. Upper school students in Mrs. Borcher’s economics class were able to create their own finance apps and sell them online at the App Store to track their profit. As a result, the school was invited to join the Knowledge@Wharton High School’s Global Leaders Network. The network, run by the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, is an online platform for school districts that are committed to enhancing leadership, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy opportunities for students and educators.
As technology continues to advance, Country Day is committed to creating and communicating an educational vision that will prepare young people for the future, even if that future remains relatively unknown.
Now, I conclude as I began, with a story. The pencil had been around for nearly 300 years when the first pencil factory opened in the United States in 1861. Around the same time, an enterprising pencil maker decided to add an eraser to the end of the pencil. The fear that combining these two technologies into one writing implement would encourage students to make errors created quite a stir in education circles. The pencil with an eraser was attacked by teachers and even banned in some classrooms. Indeed, technology does change everything.
Want to continue the conversation? Contact the Head of School, Dr. John Davies, at daviesj@miamicountryday.org.
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