On Hijacking a Teacher

Blogs can be anemic self-disclosure censored by the drive toward privacy and vague fears of identity theft. While I would like to claim that I do not fall prey to such concerns, I cannot.

I can, however, avoid the trend toward anemic self-disclosure masked behind pseudonyms and vagaries. Personal affairs can inform blogging, however--and they should. But they should not hijack it. You do not want to know that my ear itches and I went to the doctor about it once, or that I have fish that are fighting over food in an aquarium to my right. This blog is about educational technology, not medical complaints, my fishes' Darwinian struggle for resources, or my favorite things to teach, necessarily.

Personal affairs certainly inform blogs (and teaching too), but they should not hijack it. I love to talk about philosophy and literature, but I teach German grammar and vocabulary currently. If I tried to sneak philosophy and literature into my class in ways that do not service learning grammar and vocabulary, then my interests have hijacked my teaching. If I try to sneak a comment about how Kafka is an excellent short story writer into a blog on technology, my interests have hijacked my blog.

Speaking of hijacking, though: technology can hijack a teacher--easily. The point of teaching is not technology any more than the point of this blog is to vent personal loves and hates.

For example: I adore Rosetta Stone (an immersions-style language-learning software program). I wish I could buy it and that all my students could use it, and I could roam around and direct the class via answering individual questions. I would be a linguist-computer guru. That would be excellent. It would also be a pipe-dream because of the buzz-word: 'budget.' The money simply is not there. A handful of 20 Dollar Textbooks was a daring request. It is naive to think that because I could not afford to buy everyone Rosetta Stone, that I could not do a good job teaching my students German. To the contrary, if I do not effectively incorporate Rosetta Stone, or a textbook, or any other teaching tool into the classroom, then I could fail with my 500 dollar-a-copy Rosetta Stone German software as easily as with my 20-dollar-a-copy Schaum's Outline of German Grammar.

Nothing is a quick fix without effective implementation.

I use technology daily, imbibing it like water. I have a computer that can burn my iTunes mixes for use on my car-trips to and from school. Two iPod nanos (since the old one was outmoded by newer models) make sure I can have my music where ever I go if I so choose. My Xbox 360 and Wii and Nintendo DS take advantage of my Wireless hub to download and play game content, and if I choose, my computer can run many games as well.

You will have noticed, as astute readers, all the things I can do with my technology. I am comfortable using all of these gadgets and more, but what I do do with them varies from what I can do.

I use my computer for the Internet. As a student, I can check facts that I am familiar with, but do not have entirely committed to memory. I especially cherish the ability to find the locations of passages from the extensive amount of literature (I find it extensive, at any rate; extensive is not exhaustive, unfortunately) for use in papers.

I entered into the technological era hesitantly, if readers can believe that, given the extensive amount of technology (again: for me, it seems extensive) I possess. I am not a Luddite, but I would not have bought an Xbox 360 if my friends had not promised that we could socialize, scattered to the four winds as we are, over its voice-chat and online game play. My computer, I got for professional, scholarly, and personal reasons. The latter mirror the reasons for owning an XBox 360: the promise of keeping in touch with friends in other states an countries easily and conveniently.

Professionally, I do prefer carrying an iPod and speakers to class rather than a boombox for German listening exercises. If I had a laptop, I would likewise prefer that to carrying mounds of notes and paper to and fro.

I might miss paper, until I look at the clutter of my office-bedroom. I'd rather have that info backed up on an SD card than on my floor or in filing boxes. 1" x 1.5" SD cards are a lot easier to store. Nonetheless, if I get lonely for paper, there is always my black and white/color printer-fax-scanner to keep me company (it was only 99 dollars; 7 years ago that bought me a printer. Period).

I am enrolled in a class on educational technology, and I really hope that I learn from it not to be hijacked. For that to be the case, of course, the class itself cannot already be hijacked by technology. I grant that technology is neat, fascinating, convenient, and other superlatives, but all of that is a means to an end. I want this class to help clarify what that end is: technology 'hijacked' by effective teaching. If it shows me what that looks like, then I am all in favor.