Technology and Higher Ed, Part 2

Summing it up more simply:

When I was sixteen I took karate lessons with my friend Marty. Shōrin-ryū at the local Y. The first thing we asked our instructor was, When will we receive training with weapons? (Why did we ask this question? Because we were sixteen.) Our instructor told us that he didn’t train students to use weapons until they were at least a brown belt (one stage before black) because weapons are an extension of our bodies. We can’t learn to use weapons properly until we learn to use our bodies properly.

Similarly, technology is an extension of our minds. All the tech in the world won’t make us smarter if we haven’t developed our minds. Without that mental development, we’ll just be idiots with fancy toys, and God knows the world has enough of those already.

And considering the fact that “traditional education” using “outmoded methods” invented the computer, the cellphone, and put astronauts on the moon, I think it’s safe to say that educational tech is irrelevant to educational effectiveness. Yes, students need to learn how to use workplace tech. No, educational tech is not a magic bullet that will suddenly transform colleges into centers of effective learning (most of them actually are already).

I would like to encourage students getting ready to start a new school year to focus primarily on developing the most advanced technology that we all have: that highly complex processor wet-wired between your ears. Read a lot and read increasingly complex texts. Learn how to write well. Take the most advanced math that you can. No matter what your major, try to get in at least a year of calculus before you finish college, preferably one semester before you finish high school. If you develop yourself in these ways, your tech will be an extension of your highly developed mind enabling you to do things better and faster. If you don’t, your tech will do your thinking for you, and the only possibilities that you’ll ever be able to consider will be determined by the programming parameters of your equipment.