The Return of Ed Tech’s Past
Educational technology (ed tech) started with Edward Thorndike’s “puzzle box” where animals had to lift a lever to open a door to escape the “puzzle” and B.F. Skinner’s “The Skinner Box” where animals were conditioned to perform certain tasks. In these experiments, pigeons, rats, and other animals were used. It originally shocked me at first that human children were being compared to animals that humans deem as “birdbrained.” Before reading a little further, I was offended that people and myself were being compared to PIGEONS!
These animals that were being experimented on have very similar learning processes as humans do. Children (along with various animals) learn through reinforced behavior. This discovery uncovered the basic principles of how children learned, but it didn’t contribute to the solution of how to improve academic performance as well as preparedness for the job market in the U.S.
As you look at the image above and compare the two classrooms there are many similarities with few differences.
Introduced in the early 60s was the whiteboard, which was a replacement for blackboards. It’s weird to think that as a 22 year old graduate student I am using the same ed tech in my college classrooms that my mom grew up with in elementary school. Other technologies that were used in the past exist as improved variations of the same original ed tech that was used in part of developing education. For example, overhead projectors have been improved, but still used. Filmstrips have been upgraded to streaming or DVDs, but still used for the same concept. Lastly, scantrons are still used in the 20th century the same way they were used in the 70s, but with more wide scale use.
I have come to the conclusion, after reading multiple articles, that it is not the ed tech itself that needs to be improved upon (as we can see they really haven’t advanced that much), but how ed tech is implemented and used. Using ed tech for the sake of using it seems to be more damaging than helpful. Ed tech tools need to be employed in a manner that integrates with the lesson flow and creates stability.
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