Me, technology and delayed gratification

[caption id="attachment_23" align="alignleft" width="149"] Image: flippedclassroom.com[/caption]

This week, I considered the idea of Perspectives with my Grade 11 Theory of Knowledge students.

How do our identity and our experiences affect what and how we know things?

The students and I each prepared an online slideshow illustrating the different perspectives we believe we have. I enjoyed the process of thinking about the aspects of me which affect how I see the world. Here are the slides I shared with the students:


I have never been happier in a job than I am now as an educational technology coach. I see myself as an educator, primarily, but one who has learned a lot about the ways in which new developments in technology can enhance the learning experiences of school students. But it was not always that way...

[caption id="attachment_20" align="alignright" width="332"] Matt and Steve. Halos optional[/caption]

My closest colleague last year was a Millennial. We were doing the same work, but in at least one way our backgrounds could not be more different. Matt has spent his first three decades surrounded by computer technology and used the Internet from an early age. By the time I turned thirty, I was yet to own my first computer. In fact I was heard to observe in 1990 that "there is nothing computers can do that people haven't been doing for centuries".

But opportunity, apparently, makes the geek. In 1995 in Thailand, when the international school I joined gave each teacher a Windows desktop, I gradually discovered that every aspect of my work could be enhanced by judicious use of computers (I also learned that Duke Nukem is an endless sink of time). That's not to say computers solve every problem, rather they add a new dimension of possibilities. A year later, a colleague showed me the Internet (of which we had by then heard, even in rural Thailand) and I surfed to the brand new site I'd just read about in the newspaper: davidbowie.com (and for just one example of the surreal power of the technology, step in this time machine).

[caption id="attachment_21" align="alignleft" width="299"] We all have our own perspectives. Image MC Escher[/caption]

My journey in international education has continued, accompanied every step of the way by the amazing power of arguably humankind's greatest invention. I feel fortunate to have seen this happen in my lifetime and to have been able to use it to create and communicate with students and teachers around the world. Like many relationships, mine with technology is coloured by its history; my perspective as a user of technology is mediated by my past interactions with it.

I was prompted to think about my travels with technology when reading Jeff Utecht's reflections in Reach. Jeff describes how following blogs led him to start his own:

"With one simple click of the button, I had created my little piece of the web that would allow me to communicate and collaborate with others who were all passionate about the same thing: learning." (p. II)

In my own way, exposure to educational technology has shown me ways in which traditional education can be enhanced and then transformed by technology. This has made me passionate to share with my colleagues what I have learned. It is never easy, because we are all to some extent trapped in the ingrained perspectives of our own schooling and a lack of insight into what the future holds. I am not one of those people who will tell you 'a revolution is taking place' because I believe we have yet to shed our shackles. The fight is worth it, however.

The IB's Theory of Knowledge is almost unique as a course expressed entirely in questions rather than declarative statements of what students 'should' do. ToK encourages critical thinking and "an appreciation of the diversity and richness of cultural perspectives" according to the IBO website. As a course with an innovative approach, I feel it is the ideal place for me to employ new media to enhance and enrich the experience of learning. And the way I do that will be unavoidably influenced by the way I have grown up with technology.

I look forward greatly to sharing the experience with the CoETaIL community.