too much twitter? Review of The Flickering Mind

My students get overwhelmed by all of my web-based assignments. That doesn't mean they don't enjoy them -- but, I have to face facts: too much of a good thing gets to be too much, period.

They have accounts for blogging, social networking, wikis, and googledocs. I recently conducted a polldaddy survey. Of course, we have our class website, as well.

I love these toys, and my students often appreciate the creativity. But, for many teachers like me, the web is pretty addictive candy. I do social bookmarking, and am somewhat concerned that those of us in the ed tech world aren't getting carried away. Before you know it, our kids are twittering, facebooking, blogging, skyping...

These are great tools. But we must make sure they aren't mere distractions. I've walked in classrooms where the teacher's smartboard features a textbook company-generated graphic organizer summary of the day's lesson, which generated a few oohs and aahs from a fellow colleague. It's little wonder there are other teachers who are not so turned on to the classroom 2.0.

I've been reading The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promises of Technology, by Todd Oppenheimer. He found classrooms where the teachers proudly watched their students tinker with powerpoints, which were long on flash and short on content; and art students who "created" visual projects throughout the term, without pulling out the paintbrushes. These situations are unfortunate.

I am still not sold on twitter. I get it: you can send concise, 100-plus tweets. I even like the moniker. But it does strike me as another distraction.

That said, Oppenheimer doesn't totally know what he's talking about. He argues that schools spend too much money on technology, which make schools look nice and shiny, but add little educational value. He is wrong: the problem is not the technology, nor the money. Money should be spent on technology. The problem is dumping computers in school districts without employing technicians to keep labs running, and expecting teachers to produce meaningful tech-based lessons without quality training. Most teachers will tell you that most professional development sessions lack substance. It's amazing that schools hand out laptops and smartboards, without sharing how to use them in pedagogically meaningful ways.

I'm not advocating for more twitter, nor less tech funding. What needs to happen is a real committment to developing smart classrooms. Politicians like to boast about the new apple computers in their school districts. Without adequate financial and technical support, they'll continue to gather dust.