Magic is in the Magician, not the Technology

There are those who believe that by its very nature, modern technology can cure many of the instructional problems facing today’s schools. On the other hand, sit those, such as I, who believe that the success of technology cannot be separated from the abilities of the teacher.

A few summers ago, some non–educator colleagues informed me that they were going to be in town and wanted to visit a school with an exemplary technology–using teacher.

I made a quick call to the head of the Curriculum Department who said I was in luck, for she had just gotten an e-mail about an elementary school teacher who all but walked on water, using Excel with third graders. Having been around the block a few times, I decided to check this out before making any commitment. Boy, was I lucky I did.  First, the teacher needed three assistants to keep order in the classroom. Second, the students were simply using Excel grids to help them lay out pre-made graphics. Third, the room — and the school — was in general disarray.

Out of desperation, I called a principal I had known and trusted who informed me that she had a teacher who met my qualifications. The second-grade teacher we observed blew our socks off. Within three minutes of the start of the lesson I opined to the principal that this teacher, while successfully incorporating technology into a social studies lesson, would be an excellent teacher with just a slate tablet and chalk. After five minutes, my guests, my assistant and I were dumbfounded, with our jaws hanging down in absolute amazement while a master teacher and her young students used technology effectively and effortlessly.

This reminded me of a similar scenario: After receiving several calls from a middle school principal, I agreed to go to his school to see what his team was doing with electronic whiteboards, as it was one of the first schools in the district, at the time, to use this technology. I stood in the back of the room while a seventh-grade mathematics teacher presented materials using the whiteboard and a student-response system. Watching the interaction between the teacher and the students was inspiring and uplifting. Once again, after a few minutes, the principal agreed with me that this teacher was a master with or without the technology. This point was validated when we went to the next classroom where the teacher had the same technology available and, while doing an adequate job with it, did not perform anywhere near the same level as the first. In talking to the principal about this, he said that before the introduction of the electronic whiteboards, the second teacher, while satisfactory, was certainly a step below.

What then does this all mean in terms of educational technology? While this may seem like an oversimplification, there really isn’t any magic in technology, such that it that turns a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Yes, one is amazed at the manipulation of audio and visual information that modern technology provides, but that alone will not impart the magic of learning. That real magic comes from what a teacher does with the technology: the decisions about when to use it; how to incorporate it with other aspects of the curriculum; with whom to use it. In other words, the real magic is in the human applications of technology.