Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Style from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette,
Speaker 1: and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as he always does on the
Speaker 1: occasions on which we sit here behind the microphones and
Speaker 1: talk about things about tech, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Is this a kissing book? So today we're going to
Speaker 1: address the question will technology revolutionize education? Yes? No? Maybe? Okay,
Speaker 1: we got the basis covered. Let's dive in. Alright, then
Speaker 1: I feel better. Emily, we love you. She may not
Speaker 1: even be listening anymore. Yeah, she might have moved on
Speaker 1: to bigger and better podcasts. There's no such thing, all right,
Speaker 1: So we wanted to talk about this is another in
Speaker 1: our series obviously on education and technology. Um, we want
Speaker 1: to talk about the the possibility, the potential for technology
Speaker 1: to revolutionize education and the way that the teachers teach
Speaker 1: students and uh, and kind of talk about the difference
Speaker 1: between the tool and the method. Actually, it's funny because
Speaker 1: we sort of set that up as a joke and
Speaker 1: we did the yes, no, maybe, But I think I think, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know, there's there's a potential. But yeah. The
Speaker 1: the it's it's just like any other tool. If you
Speaker 1: if you hand someone a tool but do not tell
Speaker 1: that person how to use it, then you can't expect
Speaker 1: the person to become an expert with that tool, you know,
Speaker 1: and be able to produce anything of any value without
Speaker 1: lots and lots and lots of time. And that means
Speaker 1: the person has to be really motivated to to master
Speaker 1: that tool, uh, despite the frustrations of not really understanding
Speaker 1: how to use it. And that's just that's that's too
Speaker 1: good big a burden most of us, I would I
Speaker 1: would have I would not hesitate to say that most people,
Speaker 1: if given a really advanced tool but they were given
Speaker 1: no help and how to use it, UH, would abandon it.
Speaker 1: There'd be a few who would be intrigued enough to
Speaker 1: try and master it. But I think I think an
Speaker 1: overwhelming percentage of us, and I include myself in that
Speaker 1: would get frustrated and find it find better ways to
Speaker 1: use our time. I find I find myself doing that
Speaker 1: with a number of software programs, frankly, Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: times where well, here's a good example. This this is nothing.
Speaker 1: We didn't discuss this beforehand, but here's an excellent example.
Speaker 1: We did a podcast about this particular tool ages ago,
Speaker 1: and just recently it went away Google Wave. So Google
Speaker 1: Google Wave was a really innovative tool. And as we
Speaker 1: record this podcast, it's just shortly after Google pulled the
Speaker 1: plug on Wave. Yeah. I think they're I think they're
Speaker 1: just going to leave it and you can use it
Speaker 1: the way it is. But I don't think they're ever
Speaker 1: they're not supporting development. Yeah, they're not going to do
Speaker 1: anything with it. So Google Wave was this really interesting idea,
Speaker 1: the execution of which was so confusing that I think
Speaker 1: most people never really got a grip on the best
Speaker 1: way to use the tool. Here we go. We we've
Speaker 1: got this really advanced tool that could do lots of things,
Speaker 1: but without any direction on how to use it and
Speaker 1: and way in the real case scenarios of how this
Speaker 1: could be useful. Most people tried it maybe once or twice,
Speaker 1: and then found it to be so overwhelming and confusing
Speaker 1: that they were like, well, there's there's no use for
Speaker 1: this for me, and they stopped coming back to it.
Speaker 1: Chris and I are in that camp. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: we did find a specific use for it, but then
Speaker 1: that specific use went away. Yeah, that was That was
Speaker 1: the funny thing too. It wasn't um, it wasn't so
Speaker 1: much that it wasn't terribly confusing, but there were a
Speaker 1: lot of situations in which you try to use it
Speaker 1: for something you know, you know what, this is not
Speaker 1: the right tool. Yeah, spending too much time trying to
Speaker 1: make this, make it work, make it work right, instead
Speaker 1: of having it work right off the bat. And you
Speaker 1: could see that there were potential applications, but they were
Speaker 1: so specific that if you didn't have a need for that,
Speaker 1: then Google Wave was just you know, it was easy
Speaker 1: enough to forget about it because unless that specific case
Speaker 1: came up, um, there's no point in going to it.
Speaker 1: So there's an example of a technology that in theory
Speaker 1: should be amazing, should be incredibly useful, and a great
Speaker 1: collaborative tool and a great communications tool, but in practice
Speaker 1: it fell apart. Well, the same can be said about
Speaker 1: technology and education across the board, and it could be
Speaker 1: something as simple as just a regular laptop computer, which
Speaker 1: a lot of us take for granted. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of us have been used to using computers.
Speaker 1: Some some of you out there have been using computers
Speaker 1: ever since you can, you know, as far back as
Speaker 1: you can remember. Now, that's not the case with UH,
Speaker 1: with us, because we're old enough to remember when personal
Speaker 1: computers were very uncommon, although we both jumped on the
Speaker 1: bandwagon pretty early. True enough, I do remember monochrome monitors,
Speaker 1: so yes, yeah, I I also remember those. So again,
Speaker 1: they it's easy enough to take that for granted because
Speaker 1: they've been you know, computers have been around long enough
Speaker 1: now so that the current generation of students have grown
Speaker 1: up with them. But that does not necessarily mean that,
Speaker 1: you know, just by throwing computers in the classroom, you've
Speaker 1: made education easy and accessible and effective. So let's let's
Speaker 1: kind of talk about how technology can affect education and how,
Speaker 1: you know, where we place the importance on on the
Speaker 1: method of teaching. UM. One interesting thing I read was
Speaker 1: a case study that was being done where UH students
Speaker 1: were making a learning style assessment. Because we all have
Speaker 1: different learning styles, right, Yeah, some of us are much
Speaker 1: better if we hear information, then we can process it
Speaker 1: and we're we're good to go. Some of us have
Speaker 1: to see it UM personally. For me, the way that
Speaker 1: I learned, and and this is something that that still
Speaker 1: applies today, is that I needed to see why you
Speaker 1: did something a specific way, not just how to do it,
Speaker 1: but why it had to be done that way for
Speaker 1: it to make sense to me, because without it making sense,
Speaker 1: it was just it was just information and I couldn't
Speaker 1: put it into context and it was ultimately meaningless to me.
Speaker 1: So if you could, if you could explain a chemical
Speaker 1: reaction to me and explain to me why the chemical
Speaker 1: reaction happens the way it does, then it totally made sense.
Speaker 1: But if you just gave me the you know you
Speaker 1: acid base salt, uh, you know, and that was it it.
Speaker 1: I could. I could regurgitate those facts, but it didn't.
Speaker 1: There was no real comprehension there, right right. So really,
Speaker 1: I think the technology in the classrooms question, UH. It's
Speaker 1: a great tool, but what that really means is that
Speaker 1: we have to focus on teaching students how to think. Yes, definitely,
Speaker 1: so UM the uh the Sugar Learning System, which is
Speaker 1: a operating system UM that is geared toward elementary school
Speaker 1: students UM or primarily toward them ha ha. Primarily UM
Speaker 1: basically is designed. It was designed for the one Laptop
Speaker 1: per Child project, but it can be used on on
Speaker 1: any computer. You can use a what they call it
Speaker 1: sugar on a stick, which is a USB implementation of that.
Speaker 1: It's also tasty rock candy. Rock candy is sugar on
Speaker 1: a stick. Is tastes like silicon, um and and lead.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't suggest silicon and lead. This tastes like sand
Speaker 1: and blindness, yes, and rage. UM. Anyway, thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: Basically the one of the things behind the operating system,
Speaker 1: I mean, other than to be simple enough that people
Speaker 1: speaking many languages can use it, A lot of it
Speaker 1: is UH as visual and not necessarily language oriented, although
Speaker 1: it has been localized in many instances. UM. One of
Speaker 1: the benefits to this is that it teaches critical thinking UM.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of unique, I think in the idea
Speaker 1: of bringing technology into the classroom, because I mean, it's
Speaker 1: one thing to drop a PC in front of somebody
Speaker 1: and go, here you go, there's the Internet, that's everything,
Speaker 1: and yeah, here's your diploma. Get the hell out. Honestly,
Speaker 1: that's some people's approach, but ye, teaching teaching kids how
Speaker 1: to think for themselves is UH is sort of unheard
Speaker 1: of in some circles, you know, and it's, uh, it's
Speaker 1: nice to see that that people are trying to take
Speaker 1: that into account when they are developing technology, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they're also recruiting people to make more applications
Speaker 1: for the operating system and uh, you know it's a
Speaker 1: it's a free and open source OS, so it really
Speaker 1: gets many many people involved and tries to get the
Speaker 1: the end user in this case, the students, to uh
Speaker 1: to think for themselves. Yeah. And if you guys have
Speaker 1: been listening to our show for a while, you know
Speaker 1: that I've stressed critical thinking multiple times. And uh, and
Speaker 1: that's something that I wish had been stressed to me
Speaker 1: earlier in my educational experience. Um. By the time I
Speaker 1: was starting to hear the term critical thinking, it was
Speaker 1: pretty late in my high school. Uh. Well, I guess
Speaker 1: it had to be junior senior year in high school.
Speaker 1: And then of course I heard it throughout college. And uh,
Speaker 1: critical thinking is really really important. It's it doesn't to me,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter so much what tools you have
Speaker 1: at your disposal as much as it as much as
Speaker 1: learning to think critically. UM. Now, having great tools at
Speaker 1: your disposal makes that both easier and I'm having a
Speaker 1: zombie advance on me as I'm trying to do this. Uh.
Speaker 1: But having the tools at your disposal makes critical thinking
Speaker 1: easier to do, but it does not, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not necessary. So in that sense, you could say, well,
Speaker 1: technology revolutionized education. You could almost say no, because what
Speaker 1: would revolutionize education is making sure that you're teaching students
Speaker 1: how to think. But I think technology makes that easier.
Speaker 1: It also makes it easier to engage students. Um. I
Speaker 1: was talking about that learning assessment and I was talking
Speaker 1: about my own way of of learning. Uh, I kind
Speaker 1: of kind of lost the whole point of that. I
Speaker 1: thought I introduced it, but I didn't really get at it.
Speaker 1: But the point of that was to if you if
Speaker 1: you have a classroom where each student has access to
Speaker 1: a laptop computer. Let's say that's an example, and each
Speaker 1: student takes a learning assessment test and and the uh,
Speaker 1: the program determines the best way for that student to
Speaker 1: learn in theory. If you are using an electronic syllabus,
Speaker 1: Let's say a teacher could present a certain class a
Speaker 1: lesson and then all the materials that related to that
Speaker 1: lesson would be filtered to the student through the laptop
Speaker 1: in the method that was the most effective method for
Speaker 1: that student to learn in it's feasible, which is to
Speaker 1: me mind blowing. You have to remember, when we went
Speaker 1: to school, the way you learned really ultimately didn't matter
Speaker 1: because the person saying next to you did not necessarily
Speaker 1: learn that same way, and the teacher did not necessarily
Speaker 1: teach in that way. So you had to try and
Speaker 1: adjust your learning, uh, your learning preference to the way
Speaker 1: the teacher taught. You know, the teacher could not. The
Speaker 1: teachers are just in they're not able to teach in
Speaker 1: a way that's going to hit every student effectively. It's impossible.
Speaker 1: It's not that the teachers are it's not impossible, but
Speaker 1: you would really need group students into groups who of
Speaker 1: similar learning styles to make it work. Based upon being
Speaker 1: based upon our resources, okay, based upon the number of
Speaker 1: teachers compared to the number of students. It's impossible because
Speaker 1: we don't have enough teachers and enough space to group
Speaker 1: students in class sizes small enough for that to be
Speaker 1: an effective approach, at least not not across the entire country.
Speaker 1: In some school districts that may be possible and that
Speaker 1: is amazing and wonderful and uh, you know I and
Speaker 1: I'm also I want to stress I am the son
Speaker 1: of two teachers. I want to stress that I respect teachers.
Speaker 1: There are no words to express how how how gratified
Speaker 1: I am towards them. But they they they're fighting a
Speaker 1: losing battle when it comes to trying to teach and
Speaker 1: engage every student. It's just not gonna happen. Technology helps
Speaker 1: that makes that a little less difficult. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say that with technology we're suddenly going to have
Speaker 1: a nation of engage students, every single one of whom
Speaker 1: is eager and willing to learn at every day at school.
Speaker 1: But it makes it easier because if you can determine
Speaker 1: that each student's learning style, and if you can taylor
Speaker 1: the lessons electronically so that the student has the best
Speaker 1: chance of grasping a concept, understanding it, and being able
Speaker 1: to apply it, then it makes engaging that student much easier. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of students would be engaged if
Speaker 1: they felt I didn't feel like they were not getting it,
Speaker 1: you know. And of course, you know, if you could,
Speaker 1: if you could teach every student to his or her
Speaker 1: particular style. I think you would have fewer board students
Speaker 1: in class, you would have more engagement overall. It would
Speaker 1: be it would be a really amazing I think it's
Speaker 1: a really amazing outcome from that. I was just going
Speaker 1: to mention too, if you're interested in learning your learning style. UM.
Speaker 1: I wasn't long ago that one of my professors in
Speaker 1: my graduate school studies suggested the VARC Learning Assessment, which
Speaker 1: is really neat and free um AT and you can
Speaker 1: find that at v A r K VARC dash learn
Speaker 1: dot com. So you know, if you're you're if you're curious,
Speaker 1: there's a quick questionnaire um takes just a few minutes
Speaker 1: to fill out, and you can find out how you learn,
Speaker 1: which actually may affect the way you use technology to learn,
Speaker 1: because maybe you can find you know, once you've identified
Speaker 1: these things, they'll probably seem sort of self evident. You'll go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: well I knew that. But you know, it's nice to
Speaker 1: to kind of have somebody go, okay, well, based on
Speaker 1: what you've told us, this is what we think. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it could be useful and and for some
Speaker 1: people it's all about getting hands on experience with something.
Speaker 1: For others it's you know, hearing it all intellectualized. It
Speaker 1: depends from one person into the next. Some people tend
Speaker 1: to be really good at all of them and I
Speaker 1: hate them. Well unless you listen to tech stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: some people are self directed to yeah, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: others need the teacher or professor to you know, go
Speaker 1: through its step by step. Um. For me, I think
Speaker 1: it sort of depends on the topic. Yeah. For example, Uh,
Speaker 1: in in symbolic logic, I found that I could direct
Speaker 1: myself so effectively that I would attend class two days
Speaker 1: out of five and I aced it. But in other classes, Uh,
Speaker 1: that was certainly not the case. So it's not like
Speaker 1: I was some sort of genius. It was just that,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, symbolic logic was one of those things
Speaker 1: that just clicked. Um. But you know that's again with
Speaker 1: with the technology, we can identify that at least have
Speaker 1: the potential to identify that early on with students and
Speaker 1: hopefully maximize each student's potential to to learn. Um. And
Speaker 1: there's some other ways that technology really could revolutionize education. Uh.
Speaker 1: Here's here's just a simple example is consider a social
Speaker 1: studies course or a geography course, and then think of
Speaker 1: a virtual globe program and I'm just gonna use Google
Speaker 1: Earth as the example because it's the one and the
Speaker 1: most familiar with all right now, Google Earth allows you
Speaker 1: to apply various layers to the the globe, the virtual
Speaker 1: globe you're looking at, which can be helpful in dozens
Speaker 1: or hundreds of different applications in an educational format. So
Speaker 1: theoretically you could create a version of Google Earth that
Speaker 1: would show you what the civilizations look like in medieval Europe,
Speaker 1: so you could see things like the size of Paris
Speaker 1: compared to the size of London and uh and and
Speaker 1: see like how far widespread certain civilizations were, and even
Speaker 1: in core break things like multimedia and movies, so that
Speaker 1: if you want to explore a particular concept even further,
Speaker 1: it'd be easy enough to do that. With modern day geography.
Speaker 1: You could show how how borders have shifted over you know,
Speaker 1: as little as a decade ago, how how borders have shifted,
Speaker 1: And you can even show things like through pictures and
Speaker 1: video and that sort of thing, um, the conditions of
Speaker 1: that particular region, the people who live there, the kind
Speaker 1: of lives they lead, which I think would lead to
Speaker 1: a much deeper understanding of various cultures and regions throughout
Speaker 1: the world. In my experience, we got all that by
Speaker 1: reading from a textbook. But words on a page, don't
Speaker 1: you know. Of course they always say a pictures worth
Speaker 1: a thousand words. Words on a page don't have the
Speaker 1: same impact as seeing this stuff. Uh, if not in person,
Speaker 1: then at least through video and things like that. So
Speaker 1: when I think about the potential of using technology to
Speaker 1: relate something along those lines, I think it really is revolutionary.
Speaker 1: It just requires a teacher with the savvy and approach
Speaker 1: to to use it at its most effective level for
Speaker 1: it to become a reality. Well, I mean, speaking of textbooks.
Speaker 1: One of the that's one of the advantages um of
Speaker 1: having something like a virtual book or an e book,
Speaker 1: if you have the right um device that you can
Speaker 1: read it on where you can embed different kinds of
Speaker 1: technology in the page. You could actually see a video
Speaker 1: of you know, the people being discussed, um, you know,
Speaker 1: or or see pictures of them. Um. You might even
Speaker 1: be able to if it were connected to the internet,
Speaker 1: you know, get an update based on you know, what's
Speaker 1: going on. And this is the way people looked, you know,
Speaker 1: in this region fifty years ago, this is the way
Speaker 1: they are now. Um. And that that's one ability that
Speaker 1: the web has that you know, the uh, the World
Speaker 1: Book Yearbook in nineteen sixty six, didn't. Um. You know
Speaker 1: when back back when, back when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: we were using primarily paper encyclopedias. You know, you'd have
Speaker 1: the honestly, you'd have the encyclopedia salesperson coming door to
Speaker 1: door trying to sell you a set of books or
Speaker 1: your parents really a set of books. And the thing
Speaker 1: is you were expected to buy a yearbook every year
Speaker 1: to give you updates. But you know, frankly, you know
Speaker 1: once you had a set of encyclopedias and it was
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy two, you know, for your older brother
Speaker 1: or sister. You know, it's not it's ninety eight. And
Speaker 1: while I mean this stuff is six years old. And
Speaker 1: then you know, you get in the middle school in
Speaker 1: four and you go, man, this thing is getting pretty ancient.
Speaker 1: It's pretty outdated information. Now you can go online to
Speaker 1: the web, um and find a pretty good resources. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can go to Britannica dot com and get you know,
Speaker 1: fairly recent you know, articles about virtually anything, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's you You can be pretty well assured that these
Speaker 1: are scholarly resources that have been researched by somebody who
Speaker 1: knows what they're doing. And uh, and it's and it's
Speaker 1: recent and you don't have to worry about whether or
Speaker 1: not you're teacher is gonna give you a lecture about
Speaker 1: Come on, can't you find something newer than this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and technology is certainly revolutionized access to information to the
Speaker 1: point where now the problem isn't finding information about the
Speaker 1: topic you want to study, it's filtering that information in
Speaker 1: such a way that it's meaningful. But we'll we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that. We've got a plan for a future podcast. Specifically,
Speaker 1: this was actually a listener request to specifically address how
Speaker 1: to use the web and the internet to research topics
Speaker 1: in an effective manner. But that is certainly one of
Speaker 1: the ways that technology has been in the process of
Speaker 1: revolutionizing education. Well certainly, UM, you know, when you have
Speaker 1: a school media center and it's really got limited size
Speaker 1: and limited financial resources behind it, um, having an opportunity
Speaker 1: to be on something like here in Georgia, we've got Galileo,
Speaker 1: which is part of the University system of Georgia, and
Speaker 1: it's got access to thousands of different scholarly resources. Puer
Speaker 1: viewed articles, um, other kinds of information that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: physically be able to house or afford by the school
Speaker 1: itself or even the school system. It's an invaluable resource,
Speaker 1: you know, things like that. It's something that we hear
Speaker 1: at at how stuff works use quite often because it
Speaker 1: allows us to access scholarly journals that otherwise we would
Speaker 1: have to have, you know, we'd have to have two
Speaker 1: hundred subscriptions and where do we put all that stuff
Speaker 1: once we get it? Yeah? UM, that tool has really
Speaker 1: made research much easier and um far more effective than
Speaker 1: um than before. I mean before you pretty much had
Speaker 1: to you know, just hope that whatever you had was
Speaker 1: adequate to the task at hand. Well that's uh that
Speaker 1: one benefit two of of a system like that, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're probably uh comparable resources in many you know,
Speaker 1: many of the states in the United States and probably
Speaker 1: elsewhere around the world. Um is uh is the ability
Speaker 1: for somebody to a student to access that in their
Speaker 1: school media center and then go home or go to
Speaker 1: their public library nearby and get access to that. If
Speaker 1: they have an Internet connection and a computer available to them,
Speaker 1: They're going to be familiar with the system already. And
Speaker 1: it's not where they have to learn two or three
Speaker 1: separate systems. They're already acquainted with it and there there
Speaker 1: should be comfortable with it. Of course, it requires a
Speaker 1: certain level of information literacy and training, which is also
Speaker 1: part of you know, having the the teachers and media
Speaker 1: specialists having the time and um in some cases know
Speaker 1: how to explain what's going on to them. Yeah. Really,
Speaker 1: what's required there's a support system for the educators so
Speaker 1: that they themselves can not only know how to use
Speaker 1: the tools, but how to use the tools in the
Speaker 1: most effective manner. Because we you know, I've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about how teachers need to be able to explain
Speaker 1: to students how to use these tools. That means that
Speaker 1: the teachers need to learn it too. And and some
Speaker 1: teachers are going to find that more challenging than others
Speaker 1: because this is a completely new way to them. Um.
Speaker 1: And often a lot of our school systems don't have
Speaker 1: the real they don't give the teachers the resources they
Speaker 1: need to increase their skill sets in such a way
Speaker 1: that's meaningful. Yeah, and again, you know, my heart goes
Speaker 1: out to all the teachers out there. But yes, sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes they're really fighting against the system in order to
Speaker 1: get the tools they need to do a good job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is going to be sad to many of our
Speaker 1: younger listeners who are still in school. But yeah, once
Speaker 1: you once you get out of college with your degree,
Speaker 1: you will probably be engaging in some sort of professional
Speaker 1: development for the entirety of your career, especially if you
Speaker 1: are passionate about passionate about your job, like so many
Speaker 1: of the educators with whom I have worked over the years.
Speaker 1: I mean that goes to things that you you know,
Speaker 1: stuff that you wouldn't necessarily think would be applicable, even
Speaker 1: if you're just you know, you're just even if you
Speaker 1: decide to go into say, uh, you know, white collar
Speaker 1: office environment, I mean you have systems change all the time.
Speaker 1: So without that literacy, that technological literacy, uh, those changes
Speaker 1: can be really, really tough. Even with that literacy, they
Speaker 1: can be challenging. Because I can tell you, as someone
Speaker 1: who has experienced multiple upgrades over the course of my
Speaker 1: professional career, Even as someone who knows how computers work
Speaker 1: and I'm familiar with different UIs and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, even I find it challenging whenever there's a
Speaker 1: significant change. Um, I'm reminded of when the last time
Speaker 1: we updated our word processor and I was crying because
Speaker 1: all the things that I used were in different places. Now,
Speaker 1: why do you do that? Microsoft? I'm looking at you,
Speaker 1: not to call you out, Microsoft, but seriously, when you
Speaker 1: upgrade your your systems, why do you have to rearrange
Speaker 1: where everything is? I think if you say the name
Speaker 1: of the developer twice, you're probably calling them out? What Microsoft?
Speaker 1: Three times? So anyhow, well, I'm sure that if I
Speaker 1: were using some other system, like if I were the
Speaker 1: same thing is true for others as well. I remember
Speaker 1: distinctly upgrading from I think it was word Perfect four
Speaker 1: point two to word Perfect fight point one and thinking,
Speaker 1: what did you do? I can't find anything anymore? Yea,
Speaker 1: my all my shortcuts don't work anymore. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: an argument for UI designed. So when we were talking
Speaker 1: about the Classroom of the Future and the previous previous
Speaker 1: podcasts we were, I mentioned the study that we ran
Speaker 1: across in dirsh Biegel, in which they the German research searchers,
Speaker 1: had assumed that the students were comfortable. They had grown
Speaker 1: up with the Internet, so you know, they knew the
Speaker 1: ins and outs and they were going to use it
Speaker 1: for everything they ever did, and it turned out they didn't. Um,
Speaker 1: But I do think basically they to sum it up,
Speaker 1: if you haven't listened to it, they the kids music
Speaker 1: for entertainment purposes, chatting, keeping up with their friends. They're
Speaker 1: very good at using it for specific purposes. But beyond
Speaker 1: that very or a relatively narrow range of uses, they
Speaker 1: were not as effective. And they're not necessarily information or
Speaker 1: Internet literate as far as going to find research and
Speaker 1: you know, really knowing how to use the Internet. But
Speaker 1: I do think that in that case, um, they would
Speaker 1: probably be at least more familiar, Like if they were
Speaker 1: asked to switch from say Windows seven to Katie Lennox,
Speaker 1: they would probably be able to get around more so
Speaker 1: than somebody who was just getting into computers for the
Speaker 1: very first time as an adult. And I know a
Speaker 1: lot of adults who are extremely comfortable with it, but
Speaker 1: there are some and there are some kids who look
Speaker 1: at a computer and say, you know, that's just not
Speaker 1: for me. I'm not comfortable with that. I really don't
Speaker 1: want to mess with it. So I mean, you have
Speaker 1: to have people who are are trained in it. You
Speaker 1: have to have people who are comfortable with the technology
Speaker 1: for it to really make a difference in the express room.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there is an amazing potential for technology to
Speaker 1: really impact education, but ultimately it just boils down to
Speaker 1: the people, you know, And I mean that's no real
Speaker 1: big surprise. I mean it can be a surprise if
Speaker 1: you're one of those technologists, a futurist who who looks
Speaker 1: ahead and says, look at the amazing tools they'll be
Speaker 1: at our disposal, because that they often will presuppose that
Speaker 1: we will be adept at using them. Um, turns out
Speaker 1: people are a little more complicated than that. So we
Speaker 1: I I fall into the cautiously optimistic camp and that
Speaker 1: I definitely see the potential for for technology to help
Speaker 1: and I am hoping that it does. Uh. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to concentrate on that. Okay, then sounds fair to me. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: that was a good discussion about technology and education. We
Speaker 1: do have one other one plan specifically looking at the
Speaker 1: way to conduct research online and the most effective uh
Speaker 1: kind of skills that you can develop an end uh
Speaker 1: and some tips for you guys out there if you
Speaker 1: are needing to research something specific, UH, what's the best
Speaker 1: way of going about it that will be coming up
Speaker 1: in a future podcast. So if you guys have any
Speaker 1: other questions about education and technology, or just other technology
Speaker 1: topics in general, you can write us. Our email actress
Speaker 1: is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com Chris
Speaker 1: and I will talk to you again really soon if
Speaker 1: you're a tech stuff and be sure to check us
Speaker 1: out on Twitter tech Stuff hs WSR handle and you
Speaker 1: can also find us on Facebook at Facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash tech Stuff h s W or more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics becausit how stuff works dot com,
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