The iPad - More than Just a Tool

I seek to understand the culture of a technology that is fundamentally changing the dynamics of teaching, particularly in the subject of fine arts. I am an active part of the computer culture simply pursuing a better understanding of that culture. I use social media to teach a Digital Journaling course designed to help students create a responsible, creative, positive presence on the web. I am not exactly qualified to teach such a course, but have done so in response to an obvious need to help students navigate a culture for which the pitfalls are many. My use of technology has grown, in large part, to better understand the perspectives of my students.

Several months back my wife Kelly gave me a gift card to purchase the new Apple iPhone. She felt my worn-out, tattered flip phone (still sporting the antenna) needed an update. The gift was thoughtful and, at first, I was excited to “get on board” with this latest and greatest technology. I took my gift card to purchase a new iPhone on two separate occasions. Each time I walked out empty handed.

I still feel guilty to disappoint my wife by squandering her expensive gift. Kelly asked what my hesitation was in making this simple purchase. I struggled to articulate any one reason. Ironically, I have leaned-into technology, developing a website centered on social media. In fact, I focused the majority of my efforts while earning a second (very expensive) Master’s degree on the integration of technology into my art business, and classroom teaching.

The latest technology trend is the use of the iPad as a tool for both students and faculty in the classroom. This initiative has become a reality in one school that I work with. That hollow feeling that prevented me from purchasing an iPhone had returned. What was my problem? The iPad is, after all, just a tool for students and teachers to become relevant twenty-first century learners.

For starters, the iPad is more than a just tool…the iPad is an icon of a carefully crafted culture. I am sure I am not the only teacher who feels he is abruptly changing the “pace” of instruction to accommodate Apple. We lust over the iPad. Let’s face it, Androids, Kindles, Nooks and tablet-based technologies flooding the market are merely caffeine-free versions of Apple products.

Apple announced 2011 fourth-quarter revenues of $46.33 billion dollars; the largest quarterly earnings of any publicly traded company outside of the oil industry…ever! The frenzy to purchase the iPhone, and iPad forced Apple to close retail stores in Beijing, China. People are rioting to be part of this culture! Are we growing with technology like responsible educators or feeding hysteria? I am all for capitalism, but Apple does not have the education of my students at the heart of their mission.

Apple’s profits come at the high cost to student sensibilities. Teens represent a targeted demographic with rapidly declining attention spans. Multiple news sources including The Social Times.com cites the national average for the attention-span of American teens is five minutes…and shrinking! How then is tech-dependency any different than other addictions we react so negatively toward? Drugs and alcohol release endorphins to the brain…arrest development, etc. When I witness educational institutions implementing addictive technologies (without regard to culture), tech-dependency appears as damaging as chemical dependency. What is most alarming to me is the rate of such dependency.

A glacier endures tens of thousands of years of weather changes and survives…that is…until the glacier is melted to the point of exposing the earth beneath. At that point, the demise of the glacier is both rapid and imminent. A comparison of a glacier melting to dependency seems befitting. Interestingly, I saw a news report about a mountain village in Peru that was dependent upon the glacial melt for survival. The glacier has finally disappeared. Scientists and villagers are now hand painting…that is right…hand painting parts of the mountain to reflect the sun’s heat in an attempt to cool the rocks and “re-grow” the glacier! Will we, one day, need an app to re-grow student attention spans?

An important historical figure, Harold Speed writes, “The mind cannot concentrate on several things at once. And in planning a course of study it is necessary to divide the subject so that the mind may be concentrated on the difficulties to be overcome, singly.” Providing this type of clear and simple instruction is nearly impossible with overly stimulated students with limited attention spans.

I am not some old curmudgeon, isolated and detached from reality. I get it…the tools, the culture, the pace. I probably utilize technology more than most educators. I simply see what I see. I know in an instant if I have the attention of my students; I look in which direction knees, and shoulders and eyes are facing. My students associate iPad or iPhone with gaming, and messaging, and Tweeting, and texting, and music, and video, and so on. Turned on or off, the iPad remains a symbol of those distractions that I prefer not having between my students and me. The iPad is not addicting say you? Ever play Angry Birds?

Yes, an iPad is a global conduit to instant communication and information. But the mere access of knowledge is not power…the application of knowledge is power. An iPad in the classroom will not make a mediocre teacher a good teacher, or a mediocre student a good student. An iPad does not build character. I do get emotional when I see the tech culture taking away from the arts.

I see the increased value placed on the culture of technology rising in direct proportion to the evaporating value of fine arts in education.

Ouch! The investment of capital toward digital upgrades is necessary. I believe the fading emphasis for fine arts is an unintended consequence of the “promise” of this app/media culture. From my perspective, Fine Arts is in conflict with this culture.

The digital arts are essential, the computer is essential, global interconnectedness is essential…the tools of technology are essential! But the function of Fine Arts has shifted from being the rock for building aesthetic understanding, and creative development, to a mere nicety.

Do I hold the value of the arts too high? Perhaps. My view of arts culture is a lofty one…it nurtures creativity, abstract thought processes, and aesthetic sensibilities. Art culture establishes vocations, gives direction, builds empathy, fosters community, reveals gifting and purpose, for which students take ownership! When tools of technology enhance this mission, I am in full support. As an educator who sees the world through a Christian perspective, this is the culture that is edifying.

Beyond art principles, I aspire to help students see the relationships of their choices. I describe each student's "free will" like a weather vane, pointing in only one of two directions…toward God or away from Him. I do not disagree with the necessity of employing current technology in order to be relevant, and viable. I have only stopped to consider the relentless marketing machine we are joining-with that is insistent upon our students being dependent, instantly gratified, sold, impulsive, distracted, hyper self-aware. Facebook, Myspace, myCloud, iPad, iPhone, iMac, I, I, I, me, me, me… The prolific Christian author C.S. Lewis describes the worst sin of all to be pride.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. Phillipians 2: 3-4

I surveyed several groups of my teen students and asked, ‘iPads in a classroom for educational purposes…good idea or bad idea?’ The immediate response was elation, a resounding “duh, of course it’s a good idea!” I then asked, ‘Is it possible to remove the distraction of apps, and focus on education, even if the teacher is boring?’ The overwhelming response was, “no.” One student quipped, “A teacher would need to be a BEAST of classroom management to stop kids from using apps!”

Truth be told, I do need to learn how to become a more interesting BEAST of classroom management. I am not anti-technology, nor do I wish to prevent the iPad from being implemented as a learning tool. I cannot, in good conscience, help my students be “in the world,” and not, “of the world” if I do not seek to understand a quickly emerging culture that is so clearly opposite and opposed to my own core values.