There was a day when I was a conference junky. I took copious notes and sought every opportunity to touch base with speakers who captured my imagination. Being a teacher, I also got easily frustrated with colleagues. Our school would pay for us to attend the conference and then some would skip out to go golfing with a group of friends. While I never fell into the golfing group, my interest did begin to dwindle over time, to the point where I would sneak out half or two thirds of the way through a given conference day.
But my favorite conference, the Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning hosted in Madison, Wisconsin is always different. While I have stumbled across a few less than interesting talks, the quality and practicality of speakers is consistently high. So, it was odd for me to skip out of the final presentation at the conference this year. Chris Dede, Professor of Education at Harvard, was giving a talk on Evolving Emerging Models of Learning and Teaching via “Cyberinfrastucture.” Instead of listening to the talk, I had a great lunch with a former colleague who now works in Madison.
But I didn’t miss the presentation. I postponed it a few weeks until the video was put online. Then, over lunch, I opened up the presentation on one monitor and my digital notepad on the other. I expected a great talk, but I didn’t expect to find a quote in the first two minutes that was so engaging, so provocative, that I could even hear a room full of forward-thinking distance learning leaders mumble or possibly engage in a little nervous laughter.
On Chris’s first slide he explained that we are moving from a position where people ask “Can distance education be comparable in quality with face-to-face instruction?” to a time where we instead ask, “Is pure face-to-face instruction professional malpractice? “ He briefly explained his point, but not much, so while I eventually listened to the rest of the talk, I had to pause it and spend some time on that last part. Professional malpractice? I wasn’t even sure what he meant, but I intuitively knew that he had spoken something very important. So, I typed the quote and printed it out as a poster that still sticks to the bookshelf in front of my desk, occasionally evoking a confused, surprised, or inquisitive response from visitors.
I look at the quote several times a week. The more I think about it, the more I agree with it. Some may disagree with it on different levels. Some might argue that technology is simply a tool. But is it an optional tool? What if you hired a handyman by the hour who insisted upon not using power tools to get the job done? Or how about a doctor who preferred to bypass modern medical tools for those used a century ago? According to Dede, this is what people will think of educators today who are resistant to the use of current and emerging educational technologies.
While I agree with the spirit of Dede’s comment, I’m not sure if the research supports him quite yet. There are still plenty of highly effective educators who use little to no current technology. But the truth behind his statement begins to appear as we think about preparing people for 21st century living. What if I am preparing someone for a vocation that requires strong Internet research skills, digital communication expertise, the ability to effectively collaborate at a distance, and an understanding of the ethical issues in the digital world? If I refuse to model and explore these elements with my students on some neo-luddite ground, then perhaps I am venturing into a type of malpractice. As explained by people at The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, we are obligated to prepare students for life in the world of the present and the future, not the world of the 19th and 20th cenutury.
