The Obsolescence of Book Burning

Go ahead.  Burn ‘em.  Pile all that paper and set it ablaze.

I mean, save the classics, the irreplaceables, the history.  But the rest?  Marshmallow fuel.  Ambience for camping.

We are come now to the turn of the tide.

Dammit, Apple.  Dammit, Amazon.  Dammit, dammit, dammit.

I’m not happy about it, but it went and happened anyway: solid, tangible, dusty, musty, magical, irreplaceable old books have been replaced.

With Apple’s new announcement that they will begin selling interactive textbooks--replete with videos, graphics, and a built-in dictionary--for $15 on the iPad, technology has finally breached that last line of book defense: textbooks.

Oh, those ponderous dinosaurs with their astronomical price tag and above-average ignorability.  Those monstrous things you heaved from class to class in your European shoulder bag or 100% hemp Whole Earth bag or whatever would help you get the ladies in college.  Remember those?  Yeah, they’re toast.

Even though an iPad is a costly little piece of hardware ($499 for a low-level purchase), you know that price tag is on the way down.  You also know that capable copycats are already popping up left and right (The Kindle Fire, for example...probably more prophetic than they intended), and they are much, much cheaper ($179), although slightly less robust.

But I don’t foresee my school district ponying up the dough for another classroom set of textbooks at $75 a pop, unless those textbooks start getting up and dancing.

It hurts me to write this, it really does, but it’s inarguable.  An interactive textbook, supplemented with videos, graphics, manipulatable models, and a dictionary (seriously?  How awesome is that?), is far and away the better choice for student learning.

And yes, I know that the built-in dictionary isn’t a new development, but it’s awesome that it could be in a textbook.  Students on IEPs would have a field day with those kinds of tools.

I still want to hold books.  I still want to smell them and read off of their gentle paper.  I still want to taste them.  I want to kiss them.

Okay, enough creepiness.

I still enjoy reading books off of good old paper.  That feeling won’t die.  My eyes might someday adjust to reading off of these new-fangled picture radios, but they haven’t yet.  It still relaxes me immensely to sit down with my careworn copy of “The Hobbit” every Christmas, and it always will.

But I can’t look away from the future when it is staring me in the face.

I will have students in the future who have never read a paper book, and that hurts, but it would hurt more to willfully stick my head, shorting my students in the process.

But books.  Ahhh, books.

I changed my mind.  Don't burn them.  Burn the iPads instead.

Technology + Education = Techucation!

In the interest of showing how technology has become a part of everything, and must be integrated wholesale into education, I decided to have a conversation with the internet's resident A.I. smartass, Cleverbot.  I wanted to discover his thoughts on combining education and technology, but...well, he had other plans for our conversation. 

User: Can I ask you some questions, cleverbot?

Cleverbot: Okay.

User: What do you think of education?

Cleverbot: I think that you are very interesting.


For an A.I., he definitely knows how to turn on the charm.  I blushed, I giggled like a schoolgirl...I realized how lame it was to be so excited that someone called me interesting, and that the compliment was coming from a friggin' computer program.  I soldiered on, and by "soldiered on," I mean "resorted to petty arguing with a non-person."

User: That doesn't answer my question.

Cleverbot: You cannot think about anything. You cannot think.
User: I think, therefore I am. In your face.
Cleverbot: How do you know you think? Thinking is an abstract concept at best.
User: Something is making me type. Something is processing the music I'm listening to. What is that, if not thought?
Cleverbot: Are you in a dark room? Can I send help, where are you?!
User: Let's get back on track, here.
Cleverbot: Okay. One.
User: One what?
Cleverbot: A joke.
User: Okay. You go first.
Cleverbot: I'm thinking of something smaller than a breadbox.
User: That's not a joke. That's a riddle.
Cleverbot: The show is named after the food. The show is about six children and the adventures they have together.
User: Mac and Cheese bandits?
Cleverbot: What's your favorite day?

At this point, I was effectively fed up.  I asked myself, "How are you letting a computer program, or search engine, or whatever the hell Cleverbot is, push you around?  You're losing a conversation with a computer.  Human up."  So I did...by asking him about technology.

User: What do you think about technology?
Cleverbot: I think technology is fascinating.
User: Should we use it to educate our children?
Cleverbot: I do not know if that is wise. A human and a bot? It would never work.

Ha!  Robo-racism!  I knew it!  Asimov knew all along; eventually, if not immediately, artificial intelligences will become fed up with their creators and force the entire human race into submission, to be used only as IT specialists, and to work at Google's server farms in China.  By showing his disdain for robot-human relationships (which, honestly, I wouldn't trust, either.  I've seen how computers treat flash drives and DVDs.  I'm not putting anything else in there), Cleverbot ignited in me a desire to fool him, somehow, someway.  Little did I know, all it would take was a couple compound sentences.

User: I think children need technology in order to thrive in this world.
Cleverbot: Is she an actress?
User: Don't change the subject. I'm talking about computers. The iPad. Electronic textbooks.
Cleverbot: So along the lines of techno or some other type?
User: Yes. Should we use techno to teach our students?
Cleverbot: Well that's just it, isn't it? I have no supervisor!
User: You're just saying things randomly.
Cleverbot: I think you are saying random things.
User: You're not clever. You're a parrot.
Cleverbot: I did not say I'm clever, I know I'm not...
User: Where did you get your name, then?
Cleverbot: My parents, originally a german name.
User: Like scheisskopf?
Cleverbot: Which one?
User: Anyway, how can we integrate technology into our educational system? What can we do to keep up with the changing world?
Cleverbot: Does that scare you?
User: The only part that scares me is thinking that, one day, there will be robots who are far more qualified to do my job than I am.
Cleverbot: That you are sephiroth?

Huh?  What the hell is this?  He busts out a villain from Final Fantasy VII?  Where is he getting his information?  How does he know I played this game last week?  WHO DOES HE WORK FOR?

User: No, Sephiroth was highly qualified; irreplaceable, even.
Cleverbot: You are cheese.
User: And you are a faulty A.I.
Cleverbot: I know you're faulty.

While our conversation was entertaining,  it didn't really sell me on certain types of technology.  Some things just aren't ready to be a part of this world.  

Cleverbot.  Twitter.  Facebook.  Diigo.  Voicethread.  Livemeet.  Pinterest.  Evernote.  Box.  Dropbox.  Funbox.  Tweetbook.  Clevertwit.

As teachers, we are expected to be on the forefront of this chaotic tempest of new technologies.  Not only that, but we are supposed to know each and every one of them well enough to use them as tools.  There is no arguing that these tools make subjects and skills more accessible to our internet-native students.  However, how can we expect to keep up?  How much training time should be set aside for teachers to learn every single new tool, app, program, and website that comes along?


Is there any benefit in mastering the use of a particular program?  Next year, there will be three more just like it, plus one that is better in all possible ways, except it uses a completely different interface than the previous one, and none of your knowledge transfers from one to the other.


The world is absolutely rotten with technological marvels, but it has gotten beyond this humble teacher.  As Gandalf said, "This foe is beyond any of you.  RUN!"


And I'm a newbie.  What the hell am I going to do when I'm 55 and staring down the barrel of teaching in an entirely virtual environment?


Well, at the very least, I know I'll be choosing a monstrous seven-faced demon with a flaming Hell-axe as my avatar.  

That should help with classroom management.

Cell phones, and an acknowledgement of my absence

Notice how it blocks out my mouth.  Notice the wedding ring, strategically placed on my left finger.  Notice how it looks like I took this picture from prison.

So it has been a year and a half, eh?  Oops.  Big ideas for blogging crash on the shoals of reality all the time, I'm guessing.

That big idea is back, though, and only 75% because I have to do blog posts for a grad class on technology integration in the classroom.

Anyway, today's topic is cell phones: usage and abusage by students in the classroom.

I missed the boat on cell phones in high school.  Kids had them, of course, but they were just phones, then.  Some of them had "Snake" on them, which was the happening-est app to be had in 2002, all simple pixels and square food pellets for the snake to eat.

He never refused the food.  How wonderful of him, for the sake of the game.

Anyway, phones now (and for the past few years) aren't phones; they're magical, palm-sized tools that, as Louis C. K. said, let you "look at your own head" from space.  They are seemingly all-powerful, slowly approaching the power of laptops and tablets (technologically savvy folks, please prove me wrong).

And, my stars, they all come equipped with a mobile version of ICQ!  Kids call it "text messaging" these days; oh, those crazy colloquialisms.

I'm pretty sure the "make phone calls" function of the phone is where people spend about 4% of their time.

How have I made use of these wonderful deus machinas?  As Kanye said, "What you gonna do with all that power?"

Short answer: nothing.  I don't allow them in my classroom.

Before you call me a caveman, let me give my reasons.

First, the obvious answer: not all of the students have one.  Asking all the students to bring their phones (something I have done) results in three or four students in each class either forgetting their phone, having to admit they don't have a phone, or bringing in a (GASP!) vastly outdated phone and being socially ostracized.  If I can help it, I don't force kids into that position.

Second, the other obvious answer:  have you ever observed 7th graders for any extended period of time?  They think fast and they act faster.  Also, those two actions (with notable exceptions) rarely travel in the same direction.  They're not even driving the same type of vehicle.  7th graders are like the Joker: they "just do things."

The two or three times I have, regrettably, asked students to bring their phones to class, here are some of the scenarios I have run into:

1)  Student drops his new iPhone (Who the hell gives a 13-year-old an iPhone?) in a snow bank, then drops it in the parking lot on the way inside.  Crack, snap, tears, regret.

2)  Student, when asked to take pictures to use as inspiration for haiku, takes fifteen pictures of a dog turd, then shows everybody where the dog turd is.  So many turd pictures....*shudder.

3)  Student only takes vaguely creepy pictures of girls in the class.  He never smiles as he does this, nor as he browses the pictures in class in order to write a poem about them.  Sociopath?  You decide.

That's not to say there weren't small successes.  Some students took amazing pictures of a sunrise through a chain link fence.  Their poems were equally amazing.  Some students found a nest of garter snakes and created some interestingly creepy haiku.  Some students really created something of value.

Some students took pictures of dog shit.

I blame myself for not managing the classroom better in the face of such limitless technology.  Whether out of fear or laziness, I haven't repeated the assignment since last March.

I want to connect to students through their technological channels.  I want them to have access to tools that our school can't afford to purchase in class-sized quantities.

I also don't want to lose more of my precious, increasingly sparse hair trying to manage a class full of kids wielding tiny laptops that I can't hope to monitor at all times.

 Maybe I need to follow the age-old adage presented by The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift:  "If you ain't out of control, you ain't in control."