Below is part 1 of a 5 part series titled: Technology and Us…

What role should technology play our lives?

I guess to begin to answer that question, we first need to ask what should we define as technology?

Technology has invaded every part of our lives; so much so that what was once unbelievable, ceases to even be thought of as technology. Do you think about turning on a light switch or starting the dishwasher as using technology? There was a time not too long ago that those items were thought of as state-of-the-art, cutting edge technology. People gathered around to watch a single light bulb flicker on, and a dishwasher was the unfortunate sibling that drew the short straw after dinner, at least that’s the way it was at my house growing up.

Today, what do we consider to be technology? Cell phones… computers… the Internet? Those items are becoming more and more like the light switch. A free flip-phone, not so much… but an iPhone? Yes, definitely.

So it seems to be that over time what used to be considered “high tech” and cool becomes “low tech” once something better is made available. Is a VCR still considered to be technology – not so much. Basically we consider technology to be something new, not necessarily something that is simply electronic or a “gadget”.

Webster defines technology as “the practical application of knowledge”. Initially that is not how I would have defined technology. However, we wouldn’t have the iPhone without the perceived need for it, nor would it exist without what was learned in building and using its predecessor, the flip-phone, and the rotory phone before it, and the radio… – not just on the engineering side but on what is possible and expected from the human side. This is also why we have the concept of “new” things being implicitly considered technology but the concept is sort of lost once something has become common place. We continually apply “the next practical application” principle to what we see and use every day.

So back to my initial question – what role should technology play in our lives and in the case of ALL In Learning specifically, what role should technology play in education?

I got up this morning, put on my running shoes, got out on our neighborhood road and started my 2 mile trek only to decide after about 30 yards that I just didn’t have it in me this morning. After running and biking (on my recumbent bike) Monday – Wednesday, I gave in and gave myself the day off… as is often the case I wish I’d gone ahead and toughed it out. At least I could have justified the consumption of 6 chocolate chunk cookies this morning and two chocolate pecan crunches this afternoon.

You may be asking what this has to do with education… well I’ll tell you. I’ve been reading a book called “Brain Rules” by John Medina. He is a developmental molecular biologist, an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research in Seattle. On top of that he is a research consultant which means if you’ve got the $’s, he’ll come do brain research for you. The first chapter of this book is on the effects of exercise on the brain. There is a lot of detail that I won’t go into (he probably wants you to buy his book instead of me regurgitating it here) but I will jot down a couple of the most interesting points.

When you exercise, you increase blood flow across all the tissues of your body. As flow improves, the body actually makes new blood vessels providing more blood volume to all tissues including to the brain (my kids hang upside down to do this but that isn’t the blood volume he’s talking about). This of course provides more food distribution which improves brain function. This is key because although the brain is only about 2% of your body weight, it consumes about 20% of your body’s total energy usage.

Another brain-specific effect of exercise is the creation of BDNF (read the book…) which acts like a fertilizer to keep your neurons young and healthy, rendering them much more willing to connect with each other. This is why some folks when they are old are pretty much all used up but others are mentally as shape or sharper than when they were young.

Research is telling us that physical activity ends up being like cognitive candy. This begs the question, how much do I have to do it… (like eating spinach)? It turns out that what you’ve probably already heard is true – somewhere in the range of 30 minutes – two or three times a week will have an impact on your brain.

Not only will exercise help your brain today, according to research reproduced worldwide; as you age, your risk for general dementia is literally cut in half if you will simple participate in some leisure-time physical activity. Your risk of Alzheimer’s will be lowered by more than 60% again by some kind of aerobic type physical activity. I’m not going to go into the effects of exercise on other health related issues such as your heart, energy and of course your love life J.

Having a bike would certainly have been more fun than running this morning. Even more fun would have been biking (or running) with someone else. If I were going to ride (or run) in some kind of race, that would have motivated me even more. All this to say there are a few things you can do to help get off the couch.

1st, understand the absolutely huge impact a small amount of consistent exercise can have on your quality of your life

2nd, find some type of physical activity you enjoy (if possible). I know some computer nerds that abhor any kind of physical exercise. Other will walk 18 holes of golf 3 times a week, some love basketball, some run, whatever but do something aerobic.

3rd, find some folks that will participate with you, it makes all the difference in the world.

4th, don’t put it off.

I’ve been reading lately about the concept of entity vs. incremental learners. (sounds interesting… actually it is )

It seems there are two and only two fundamental beliefs we all have when it comes to our own intelligence. Either we believe our intelligence is fixed or we feel it can be improved with hard work. Unfortunately I would guess that a large number of people believe their intelligence, (like my ability to spell) is limited (and in the case of my ability to spell, very limited). The reality is that our intelligence is not limited, unless we cap it ourselves.

In thinking about this, I remembered a conversation with a high school friend of mine many years ago. I was in junior college at the time taking an Algebra course. It wasn’t too tough but to my friend Algebra was rocket science. I remember him saying “wow, I could never do that”. I immediately turned to him and said, “are you saying that if you set your mind, I mean really decided that you would learn Algebra that you couldn’t learn it”. He thought for a moment and said “well if you put it that way I guess I could”.

He had an entity mind set about Algebra and about school in general.

This is a guy that can fix anything and over the last few years has made literally millions of dollars running his own trucking company and now owns 3 different businesses. He had an incremental mind set when it came to fixing things and building businesses but when it came to school, he felt he was capped.

Where did he get this belief about himself?

Research done by Unger & Wilson, 1998 confirms that students often times view themselves as entity learners when it comes to school but outside of school, in athletics or on the job or at home they believe that learning requires active thought and practice and that they can get better and smarter over time.

I asked the question above, “where did he get this belief about himself”. It is hard to know how our perceptions about ourselves are formed, but praising kids for “being smart” can help reinforce a child’s belief that they only have so much intelligence.

Praising kids for effort helps them think about themselves as incremental learners, that their intelligent is just a measure of what they know at this point in time. This is critical because incremental learners are usually not as bothered by failure, will often pick new and challenging tasks and when they fail will believe it is because they didn’t work hard enough, not that they weren’t smart enough –beliefs we want to foster in children.

Some other things we can do to help kids think about themselves as incremental learners:

· Tell them hard work pays off

· Show them that hard work pays off

· Treat failure as a natural part of learning

· Praise them for their effort and not their natural ability

We feel we bring something to the table from our almost 60+ combined years in the educational space (not counting all the years we spent in the classroom itself) but I want to make sure the readers of this blog know that a good bit of the information posted here comes from research done by others.

The following is a great example of our girls and deep structure vs surface structure.

A few days ago, we were all watching an episode of The Andy Griffith Show. The show was about a young man learning to take responsibility for his own actions (the moral of the story). The young man’s dad was a very powerful politician in the state of North Carolina and had bailed him out of every poor decision he had ever made. He gets in an accident in Mayberry and is arrested by Sheriff Taylor for hit-and-run. While arrested he goes fishing with Andy and Opie, has Sunday dinner with them etc… While with the Taylor’s, Andy makes Opie pay for a window he breaks while playing baseball. The young man thinks Andy is being too hard on Opie but Andy tells him, "Opie has to learn to pay for broken windows and stand on his own two feet".

At the end of the episode, the politician’s lawyer coerces the person the young man hit in order to get the young man out of jail. The young man decides to stay in jail and finish his sentence saying "tell my Dad I broke a window and have to stand on my own two feet".

My Samoan girls did not understand his statement because the young man didn’t break a window. They didn’t get the deep structure concept of taking responsibility. They only saw the surface structure of the examples of breaking a window and wrecking a car.

The understanding of deep structure is what we are all after. Taking responsibility is an abstract concept while paying for broken windows and cars are concrete examples of this abstract concept. Exposing our kids to as many concrete examples and helping them understand the underlying abstract concepts is one of the primary goals of the classroom and must be done over and over for them to begin looking for the abstract concepts being taught.