We often focus on how science and technology are able to build on each other; knowledge gained from science allows us to develop more technology and then that technology allows us to gain more scientific knowledge (or vice versa). From this perspective, technology is viewed as a tool for scientific enterprise, and thus the primary focus is on what those tools are able to do (Waight & Abd-El-Kahlick, 2012). However, technology has also affected the practices and beliefs of the discipline of science on the whole, particularly through its bias toward objectivity.

The idea that we should base our ideas on evidence — things that we can observe— is central to science. One of the affordances of technology is that it has greatly expanded the scope of what we can observe in nature. The microscope and the telescope are just a few technologies that have allowed us to observe things impossible to see with the naked eye. Additionally, technology has given us a way to quantify these observations; the clock has allowed us to measure time, and other tools of various sorts allow us to measure length, volume, mass, and just about anything. This ability to observe and quantify has influenced our thinking about what can and should be quantified — the answer often seems to be “everything.” However, the question of whether this is actually possible or appropriate is something science, like technology, cannot answer on its own. Unfortunately, the belief that, “technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgement; that in fact human judgement cannot be trusted . . . ; that subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking; that what cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value,” (Postman, 1992, p.51) often seems to devalue the less “rational” fields of religion, philosophy, ethic – the places where those questions might better be explored.

Though technology may afford science a measure of objectivity, it has not erased the subjectivity inherent to any human endeavor. Technology can provide information, but it cannot tell scientists what that information means. It is up to individual scientists to infer meaning from data, and they do so by drawing on their prior knowledge and individual values, taking into account the cultural context in which they work. Conclusions are then expressed in a form of language adopted by the discipline – the scientific paper (another technology) —  that most often conveniently excludes references to these influences both literally and through its use impersonal voice, further obscuring the subjective nature of science. This somewhat overstated objectivity may become problematic not only when we try to use science to answer questions of purpose and meaning, but also when we try to evaluate scientific claims. If we take science to be “truth” because of its emphasis on objectivity (and our tech-influenced value of objectivity), we relieve ourselves of the effort of evaluating its claims and become poorer decision makers in the process.

For students to understand the discipline of science, they must understand what it means to operate with as much objectivity as possible.  However, we must also bring their attention to the limitations of both science and technology, the downsides of objectivity, and the ways that science is yet subjective. One way we can do this is by giving students opportunities to participate in inquiry and design activities and calling their attention to the factors that influenced their own decision-making, then relating that to the work of scientists . . . and engineers — for even the development and adoption of technology is influenced by social, political, and economic forces within society. With this knowledge, students will be better prepared to evaluate scientific claims and make informed decisions. 

Waight, N., & Abd-El-Khalick, F. (2012). Nature of Technology: Implications for design, development, and enactment of technological tools in school science classrooms. International Journal of Science Education, 34(18), 2875-2905.

Postman, N. (2011). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. Vintage.

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I created a collaborative formative assessment using Insert Learning. Insert Learning allows teachers to add discussion questions onto any webpage. Students can then respond directly to those question prompts, highlight any text on the webpage and add a comment, or add post-it notes.

You should be able to use this link below to view my assessment, but you have to use Chrome: https://insertlearning.com/v1/share/cgf990jf

After I made that first assessment, I decided that it would have been more interesting to use Insert Learning with a news article since students would be applying their learning to a more relevant authentic situation. I added just a few questions to the beginning of an article here: https://insertlearning.com/v1/share/ljpc7lpa

If you aren’t able to access them, below are a few screenshots.

If I were using Insert Learning, I would probably have students respond to the question prompts I created and then require them to respond to each other for a certain period of time. I would also ask each student to create an additional question for the class, either based off another response or something they found interesting in the text. You could either pick a few of these additional questions to discuss as a class at the end of the activity or require each person to respond to one of these additional questions.

This assessment promotes higher-order thinking because the questions are open-ended and complex.  In order to complete the assessment, students have to think about how the ideas in the questions can be supported by both the text and prior learning.  This thinking is revealed through students’ responses and the questions that they pose to one another.  One of the advantages of using Insert Learning (rather than just having a discussion around a text) is that the teacher has a record of student responses. The teacher can use this record to see what concepts students understand or struggle with and point to specific responses as evidence.  The open-ended nature of the questions should yield responses that give the teacher some insight into any incorrect thinking.  The teacher can then plan future instruction to address any misconceptions observed in the assessment. 

The way that students interpret the text and respond to the questions will depend on their prior knowledge and beliefs; the open-ended nature of this assessment provides space for these different perspectives.  As students complete the assessment, they must consider how the responses of their peers compare to their own thinking (How is what they said different from what I said?  To what extent do I agree/disagree?), and then construct a reply. This process of elaboration helps students construct an increasingly complex understanding of the content.

The hope is that more students will be responding correctly than incorrectly on this assessment, and the students that understand the content well will lead the majority of their peers to construct a correct understanding.  However, the teacher view of Insert Learning has a live feed of all responses, and the teacher should definitely step-in if things are going the wrong direction.  You don’t want the assessment to become a feeding ground for misconceptions. 

Teachers should provide students with a concrete representation of a concept first in order to help students develop a base of accurate prior knowledge. Students then can discuss how those experiences connect to more abstract ideas. Students will need to see multiple representations of a concept, both concrete and abstract, to be able to build a solid understanding of a concept. Students build this deep conceptual understanding by making connections between a variety of representations and recognizing the limitations of each representation.  Video recordings and simulations can help make abstract concepts more concrete for students by helping them experience things that they otherwise would not be able to directly observe or manipulate. 

Example:

Students could use slow motion video on their cell phones to visualize the curved path of projectile motion.   You could have students video record each other dropping bean bags or some other object while running. Then, you could then have students watch the video in slow motion and have them chart the trajectory of the object—how it traveled as it left the hand and fell toward the ground.  

Before the investigation, some students may incorrectly believe that the object will just fall straight down to the ground from where it is dropped.  This would make sense because the things that we drop in our everyday lives appear to fall straight down. You might be able to dispel this misconception just by having students mark where the object fell relative to where it left the hand. However, without the video, students could think that the object traveled in a straight, diagonal path.  The video technology allows them to see the curved path of the object, a concrete representation of projectile motion.  

The idea of gravity pulling a thrown object in toward the earth is abstract.  We can’t see gravity, we can only observe its effects.  However, by allowing students to experience (atleast more clearly visualize) the path of a projectile, this content is made more accessible to students. The video provides students with a base experience on which to build an understanding of more abstract ideas about how gravity interacts with objects.

https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/gravity-and-orbits/latest/gravity-and-orbits_en.html

This simulation (above) is another technology that can be used along with the previous activity to help students think about projectile motion. The simulation involves two objects — one large and one small.  You can make changes to the movement of the smaller object by increasing or decreasing its initial velocity and then opting to either add or remove gravity.  Students can observe how the smaller object crashes into the larger object when it goes too slow, flies off the screen when it goes too fast, and orbits the larger object when the velocity is just right and gravity is “on.” This simulation can be connected to students’ earlier experience with projectiles: How is what you saw on this simulation similar to happened in your video of the bean bag ?  What does it tell us about why projectiles fall to earth in a curved path?  Discussion should be used to help students see the connections between these two representations; these are the “big ideas” or abstract concepts that students need to learn so that they can actually use this knowledge in the future.

To be technologically literate, students need to understand what technology is, how technology interacts with society, and that technologies come with tradeoffs.  In order to teach students about these aspects of the nature of technology (NOT), we need give them opportunities to experience and reflect on a variety of technologies.

Most students will come to our classrooms equating technology with digital objects. For this reason, we must help them understand that a technology can be anything developed to meet a need/desire.  We can do this by calling attention to the fact that our light bulbs, whiteboards, pencils, classroom schedules, and books are as much technologies as iPads. Asking students questions to help them recognize the commonalities between these objects (or ideas) will help students develop a more accurate definition of technology.

Students should also have an opportunity to examine the value-laden nature of technology. With technology, “the medium is the message,” (McLuhan, 1966), meaning that the technologies we use have a tendency to shape our thinking and behavior (on an individual and societal level). For example, Bleazby (2009) writes that the medium of the internet might affect the content of what people say by providing them a degree of anonymity; a person’s views are evaluated without consideration for their age, gender, race, and experiences, etc. The message of the internet (in this case) is that context doesn’t matter. Bleazby argues that because the internet does not promote “contextual and caring” (p.7) thinking, it is not an appropriate medium for student participation in a Community of Inquiry. Also, because we know that technology affects our thinking, we as teachers need to be mindful of the technology we choose to use in our instruction; it can change the ways in which our students think about both the content and the general practices and values of our disciplines.

To help students think about how technology and society influence each other, I think it would be interesting to have students look at this chart of Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines (http://edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/teachers-copyright.jpg) and then ask them why there are different guidelines for different media. To what degree are the guidelines representative of the value we place on information from each medium? How do the guidelines reinforce these values? Why do we value these media differently in the first place? Why do we need these guidelines?

If we want students to be able to make informed decisions about their own technology use and other technology-related issues, they need to understand that technologies are not neutral, but they aren’t completely “good” or “bad” either; each technology has its advantages and disadvantages. Teachers should provide students with opportunities to identify these tradeoffs for different technologies. It can be difficult for students to critically evaluate some of the technology that is close to their heart (social media, cell phones), so it’s probably best to start this process with technology that they care less about (maybe those whiteboards or pencils?): What are the advantages of whiteboards? Disadvantages? Then we can ask students to start identifying the tradeoffs of cell phones and the like. We may have to gently point our questions to help students identify some specific disadvantages of these technologies: environmental waste, decreased privacy, cyberbullying, and distraction (Digital Responsibility). For example, you could ask students: Why might you be more likely to have a miscommunication with someone on a social media platform than in person? Why might it be easier for someone to post something unkind online than say it in person? What things might you want to think about before you post something online?

Because we are developing new technologies at such a rapid pace, it will be important for our students to have a flexible understanding of NOT ideas. We can help them achieve this by discussing (and using) many different technologies in a multitude of contexts and teaching them to ask their own questions.  While I have mostly discussed technologies as classroom tools, most NOT discussions should be embedded within the content of our disciplines (mine is science). For example, when learning about astronomy, you could ask students about telescopes: What are the advantages and disadvantages of telescopes? How might telescopes have changed the type of questions scientists asked about the universe? Students will come to understand the “big ideas” of technology as we repeatedly connect to them in a variety of contexts, within and outside of our disciplines. As for those “big ideas,” Postman (1995) gives a more detailed list:

1.    All technological change is a Faustian bargain. For every advantage a new technology offers, there is a corresponding disadvantage.

2.    The advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population

3.    Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas. Like language itself, a technology predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments and to subordinate others. Every technology has a philosophy, which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies in disregards.

4.    A new technology usually makes war against an old technology. It competes with it for time, attention, money, prestige, and a “worldview”

5.    Technological change is not additive, it is ecological. A new technology does not merely add something; it changes everything.

6.    Because of the symbolic forms in which information is encoded, different technologies have different intellectual and emotional bias

7.    Because of the accessibility and speed of their information, different technologies have different political biases.

8.    Because of their physical form, different technologies have sensory biases

9.    Because of the conditions in which we attend to the different technologies have different social biases

10.  Because of their technical and economic structure, technologies have different content biases (p.192-193)

Sources:

Bleazby, J. (2012). How compatible are communities of inquiry and the internet? Some concerns about the community of inquiry approach to e-learning. E-Learning and Digital Media, 9(1).

Digital Responsibility. (n.d.). Digital Responsibility: Taking control of your digital life. Retrieved from http://www.digitalresponsibility.org/.

McLuhan, M. (1966). Understanding media; the extensions of man. New York :Signet Books.

Postman, N. (1995). The end of education: Redefining the value of school. New York: Knopf.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton