The Siren Call of New Digital Tools

Most people might begin their 51st birthday glumly, but mine began very, very well. I headed downstairs straight to the coffee machine, stood and waited until I got a cup, (literally, a fire would have to break out for me to consider leaving) and then I sat down to my laptop in the comfortable armchair. This is the same chair in which my mother graded English essays during my childhood. It has 10-inch arms. Why don't they make chairs like this anymore?

First check was my Google Reader RSS. Browsing through Tech & Learning magazine's feed, a link caught my eye. Here it is for your enjoyment: TeachersFirstEdge. But wait, finish reading this first.

This site holds the same intention I have for my own site (tinyurl.com/lkjohnson), and that is to provide a resource for teachers. There are several reasons why the Teacher's First Edge page is great. It can be searched by grade level. The digital tools are cutting edge (I don't have that kind of network). It's well-organized and well-stocked. I couldn't control my ADD, which insisted I explore every single link and Don't forget to share this stuff! raced through my head.

So here I was simultaneously clicking through links, reading, checking them out, opening up my own site to document, and Twittering about my great find. One page would load and I would open another while it loaded. I barely heard my daughter when she came downstairs and said "Happy birthday!" I think she even had to say it twice. She began drifting out of the room and I finally answered, "I'm so excited! You can't believe this technology!" 

"Did you get it?" she asked. What? Oh, she must have asked me, "Where did you get it?" I rapidly began explaining my find to her without taking my eyes of the laptop screen. Chelsea's little slip of the tongue went unnoticed and I had to disappointingly quit within a half hour for the birthday plans we'd made. Cut to the rest of the day: I went to the city, shopped for clothes, got a pedicure, and ate out with my sister, daughter and parents. These were the activities we'd planned. All day long I'm thinking I can't wait to get back and keep checking out all those digital tools...

At evening dinner with the rest of my family, I unwrapped an iPad2, explaining Chelsea's slip. Instant absorption. I have bounced back and forth between it and the above site for days. My birthday was last Sunday, today is Friday, and I'm still out on my technology island. I'm running the house, barely. I really need to work on next year's curriculum but I need to explore all these new digital tools first. This is the thought I've had running through my head for 5 days now.


It's unsettling that emerging technology does this to me. I often wonder if technology is most addictive to ADD people like me or if those of us with it are naturally drawn to it. I get annoyed when I can't work as long with new digital tools as I want. I get annoyed when people prevent me from exploring them. I think maybe I'm not fun company to be around while I answer technology's siren call. My next thoughts are If I'm this way as an adult, how must students who haven't had as much practice at disciplining their time deal with it? How often should we be implementing new tools? How does this affect Web 2.0 education? And shouldn't we explain our purposes? Are we accountable? (A rhetorical question, of course.)

To address the teaching implications, I do need to allow more time for students to explore new tools without directives, but I also need students to understand when I call for exploration to end. I don't think exploration time looks too good on my lesson plans (Wednesday: explore Psykopaint) or to a classroom visitor ("What are you doing?" "Oh, we're playing around with Psykopaint.") However, I learn from my students often. I don't have time to understand every nook and cranny of a new tool before I've understood the possible impact it may have on their learning (engagement impact is in there, but that's a happy coincidence when it happens). Is it a constructive tool? What are its creative and authentic possibilities? These are the criteria that technology teachers must address. When you are at funding's edge and it's tight, you have to make certain decisions. Teaching exploration can be a good thing (rubrics keep it controlled), and we also must discuss with parents, teachers, and students the benefits of the tool while we're at it. We should share why we use it and how to recognize a good one, because these tools I'm going crazy with today will be different ones in five years.