March 27, 2008
Colleges Bought Classroom Technology, but Are Enough Professors Using It?
A commentary article in this week’s Chronicle raises some interesting questions about the level of technology use on campus compared to how much colleges have invested in smart classrooms, course management systems, and more.
“Time after time, when I visit a campus, read an article, or talk to colleagues, I’m surprised at how low the adoption rates of technology really are,” writes Judith Tabron, who is director of faculty computing services at Hofstra University. “The trouble is that it’s going to take a long time for academe to figure out what to do with all the technology it already has — and we need time and money to do that.”
Of course, there’s pressure to adopt even newer classroom technologies, such as Web 2.0 tools. The author urges professors, academic departments, and IT staff members to do more to encourage training and experimentation in using technology in the classroom.
“Colleges may feel that they can’t afford to provide any space and time for improving teaching,” says Ms. Tabron. “They may blame faculty members, students, or even society for a lack of innovation in education — and those charges may well be fair. But colleges unwilling to plant the seeds for change shouldn’t be surprised that they grow nothing.”
Posted on Thursday March 27, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Actually, at my cash-strapped public institution we have the opposite problem. lots of pressure to use classroom technology, but not nearly enough classroom space dedicated to it. One can spend lots of time creating a tech-friendly course, only to be stuck in a trailer when the semester begins.
— flprof Mar 27, 04:34 PM #
I used to use much more of the technology—particularly lots of PowerPoint. Unfortunately, PowerPoint seems to shut the interaction down. Good slides look pretty, but they rarely spark communication. I get better results often by ignoring the use of technology in the classroom entirely. Plus, giving them visuals and lecture simultaneously seems to give the students too much to focus on. Doing both divides their attention. Students seem to have clued into this in their own way: they used to bring laptops to many of my classes; now most of them have figured out how distracting they are and they leave them for writing and email outside of class.
— Darrell Mar 27, 04:36 PM #
darrell,i agrree with u
— unknown Mar 27, 05:02 PM #
When I was working in college at an IT desk, I found a combination of both luddites and early adopters. I spent a fair amount of time helping teach the professors how to use the tools available to them, from Bb, to digital projectors as well as a plethora of other apps to help them teach. The biggest problem was that professors had to learn how to use the tools, migrate their classes to a new medium and still keep their classes moving. For some its just too much.
— Eliot Mar 27, 05:09 PM #
Try tossing out an idea to the class, or perhaps a simple but profound question. That is going to get you a lot further down the educational road than all of the power point presentations in the world. The author seems to presume that the challenges of good teaching must involve responding to the use of new technology. They do not. Do not let the technical tail keep trying to wag the academic dog. We will use what we need as we need it. We will not throw away good intellectual interaction because someone in IT thinks that they have the solutions to intellectual inquiry. They do not. Learning to ask the right questions is better than the best canned lecture in the world, precisely because one does not know where the discussion is going to lead. Try explaining that to the typical IT person. They will have no idea what your are talking about—but that does not mean that they will back off. They think that everything interesting is reducible to a technical question. It is not. How long do we have to keep fighting this battle? The admirals in supply cannot tell the captains on the line how to fight the battles or which battles to fight. They are generally still uncomprehending as to what the core of good teaching is, and they will remain so. This battle will still be raging in fifty years, I fear, although it should never have been joined in the first place.
— Landrum Kelly Mar 27, 05:27 PM #
Powerpoint makes a mockery of quality instruction and turns a formerly stimulating course into a television show.
— Andrew Mar 27, 05:30 PM #
We have 68 smart classrooms and have seen a steady and escalating increase in technology use. In 2000-01, we recorded 4385 events; by 2006-07 it was up to 27,400 (we use Crestron’s RoomView software to capture data). We do offer various forms of support and training to get faculty up to speed but a smart room is increasingly viewed as a requirement, not a luxury.
In this case, IT is not wagging the tail or advising admirals (we do order supplies :-). We are responding to our faculty who help us to understand how they want to teach this new generation of students.
— Carole Meyers Mar 27, 05:47 PM #
I’m always concerned with how faculty will adopt new technology – considering I’m one of those who sell it to them. I have found that there are two types of people in my dealing with faculty around the world. The first implement early and with great success. The second group do their best to refuse to learn knew things.
This concerns me. Aren’t teachers supposed to instill a love of learning? How can they do that if they don’t wish to learn new things themselves?
Finally, I finish with this thought: Are classrooms about the teacher or students or the material being learned? If it’s about the students and the material they are learning, then the best possible way for the student to learn should be used. NOT the best possible way for faculty to teach.
(Just my opinions.)
— Cathy Garland Mar 27, 06:25 PM #
Of course not every institution has enough technology-enhanced classrooms, and many of us would prefer access to such rooms to be easier. (Though I did previously teach at a public institution which was fairly well equipped with technology-enhanced classrooms.) That’s part of the reason I do advise faculty to adopt decentralized, student-centered tools. Just having students discuss their classwork or share reading responses – via blog, or discussion board, or even email – can revolutionize a class and spark a much livelier discussion during precious face-to-face class time.
My article never mentioned PowerPoint – a tool which I personally dislike intensely. I don’t think I’ve ever recommended PowerPoint to a faculty member in my whole career. Clearly there’s still plenty of room for educating faculty about current Web 2.0 technologies – or even about using “old” technologies in truly student-centered, transformational ways. I am inspired to write a follow-up article!
— Judith Tabron Mar 27, 09:45 PM #
Those of us who are not necessarily enamored of the latest in technology are hardly Luddites, at least in most cases. I have used WebCT for many years, Blackboard for a couple of years, the internet for about thirteen years, and e-mail for about the same. I am always happy to learn new things and use them to the extent that they are appropriate. Do not assume that faculty members fall into two and only two groups. We are diverse, and the requirements of our various disciplines are likewise diverse. There is still a great deal of naivete being manifested in the attitudes of many toward faculty members and our general failure to become particularly infatuated with technology. We use it as we need it, and we certainly do not measure our successes as teachers by how much we use it. This forum sounds as if it could have been written for two-year colleges to me. Any college worth its salt has good IT people and good support, not to mention a good administration that knows when to help—and when to back off. There will yet be those who believe that quantifying usage of the latest technology measures something meaningful. That I sincerely doubt.
— Landrum Kelly Mar 27, 09:56 PM #
I love the last post, no mention of instant messaging, twitter, online video, serious games, social networks, or frankly anything that hasn’t been around for around 10 years. Sorry, that doesn’t count. Everyone uses the Internet and email. Time for the new new! Anyone who believes that using the latest technology does not measure something meaningful is missing the point and ignoring the acceleration of information technologies and the dramatic effect that this has on the world beyond the walls of academe.
— Jeff McNeill Mar 27, 10:06 PM #
Nuts. I use a lot of things. I mentioned the obvious. I also have a web page and philosophy blog. I will be darned if I am going to try to prove that I know how to use instant messeging or online video—in a classroom context. When someone shows me how they will be relevant to my political theory/philosophy classes, then I will use them there—and not merely in my private life. The last post shows precisely the kind of naivete that does exist out there, and that manifests itself as hubris. You guys will never catch on to the teaching game. Those of us in teaching have NO particular problem adapting to the technology that we need. What I DO use you guys cannot give me: JSTOR articles and more and more digitized info available on the web. About the best that you can do for me is to keep the network running, and that is all that I ask.
— Landrum Kelly Mar 27, 10:20 PM #
“Old school” (literally, in this case) faculty will cling to what is known to them until they are forced into retirement, kicking and screaming about relative relevance of their political theory/philosophy classes.
— Lee Mar 27, 11:11 PM #
I’m with the technology in moderation side of the argument. Online research materials, as well as online writing guides, are valuable resources. I also enjoy having the option to show a short video clip to reinforce my point or spark discussion, but no one has managed to prove to me that online discussion is anything more than a pain for the students. I never enjoyed the online aspects of my classes as a student and as a teacher, I’m not going to hand out an assignment I never found useful.
I suppose that I should point out that I’m just a TA and am far from the old school. It’s not just the old profs resisting the mindless adoption of all the internet has to offer.
— Patrick Martin Mar 28, 12:11 AM #
Erm, I’m reticent to interefere. Given that learning does not take place ONLY in the classroom, there are those things that IT can deliver outside the classroom which add value to whatever form the classroom process takes: to clarify, confirm, excite, etc. There are different teaching styles which are appropriate in different circumstances and we are assured that there are different learning styles in different circumstances. I have to admit that I haven’t acquired the technological ability to produce Web 2.0 stuff myself, but I did invest lots of time in producing online tutorials (also distributed as CDs) for iterative learning processes which I think I’ve found (and, I believe, my learners too) very valuable (and so I self-advertise, I’m afraid):
http://paleo.anglo-norman.org
I think that this facility helped outside the classroom for clarification, recapitulation, another learning style etc etc.
— Dave Postles Mar 28, 05:28 AM #
To unlucky #13 above, who wrote: “‘Old school’ (literally, in this case) faculty will cling to what is known to them until they are forced into retirement, kicking and screaming about relative relevance of their political theory/philosophy classes.” This is tripe. I am sorry to have to say it. Whatever the “relative relevance” of this or that course (whatever “relative relevance” means and why on earth one should feel compelled to say it), the technology employed should serve the agenda and content of the course, not dictate them. The question is finally a very simple one: does the technology advance or hinder the teaching mission? There is an old but still useful “technology” known as the printed word which Steve Jobs has effectively declared dead, but I wish that I could wean some of my students from their cell phones and laptops just long enough to both come to class and actually do some serious thinking beforehand and while there, to become “unwired” in the old sense just long enough to pick up a book (whether online or not matters little to me—but the plain old dead tree versions still have some advantages) and actually READ the darned things. Too many students will not even read, yet will offer their opinions all over the web (including my discussion pages) as if the simple act of logging on implies that they have actually done some work, or engaged in some serious thought. Far too often they have not. If you think that these disagreements are about age, then you are sadly mistaken and very badly out of touch. Common sense goes a long ways in every field, and we get our share of young graduates in IT who just KNOW what it is that we should be doing in all of our various disciplines—and they too often manifest the level of sophistication being shown above. Judith Tabron and many others post here with nuanced awareness of the relative merits of what various technologies can do. There are far too many, however, who want to try to disparage that which they do not understand. I brought a Canon 1Ds Mark II with an 85mm f/1.2 lens to class one day and, instead of taking the roll, I simply started shooting. The questions I got would make one’s eyes roll. “How can you do that with the lights down and no flash?” “Don’t you need a tripod to shoot at low light?” Those were among the most sophisticated answers I got. Should I have trotted out my latest Gitzo pod with an Arca-Swiss head to prove that I know what I am doing? No, I do not think so, and I do not have to try to prove that I am equally up-to-date on classroom technology to those students or the would-be IT administrators who are little more than recent college grads. For some of the kids posting on this site who feel the compunction to offer ad hominems related to age or anything else, I can only say this: Time is not on your side, and neither is technology. What is fashionable today will be considered antiquated tomorrow—and tomorrow comes very quickly in both computer-assisted instruction as well as in digital photography—and darned near everything else. Get ready to be called obsolete or “sir” or “ma’am” sooner than you think possible, but remember that enduring academic values transcend the particular technologies used to implement them. Shallowness comes in many forms, and, in addition to trying to teach our students, we now have the additional burden of trying to teach the typically recent grad in IT or related field. My younger daughter is a software developer, and we were wired (and are now wireless) from the eighties on. Before that we used mainframes with a simple terminal in each building. Some of you should simply grow up. You not only do not have the answers. You do not even know the questions. Does that slow you down? No, your keys fly across the keyboard, and you think that you are cutting age, but, guess what? The promise of the internet for transforming society was seen a long time ago by many of us old fogies, and we have actually been putting it to work. We do not just blather on about it. Whatever we do, however, we are able to factor out means and ends, and to remember that, more often than not, the former should be in the service of the latter. We are not going to lose sight of the ball just because the toys keep changing. We can handle the changes? Can you?
— Landrum Kelly Mar 28, 05:29 AM #
Powerpoint is a tool. By itself, it is like a white/chalk board and pieces of colored pens/chalk. When done, that final rendition is like a completed slide. How useful is that board of information without the augmented instructor?
When we want to compare Powerpoint (in this case), we should compare it to the completed slide or chalk/white-board of coloured ink and scribblings. Only then is the comparison fair.
Technology is an augmentation to the human effort to be useful. How useful is that should not be blamed solely on the tool, but also on the effectivess of the instructor.
In our observations, slides makes reading easier. Instructors are more productive when delivering their teaching. When appropraite, instructors have written on blank ppt slides (using digital ink on tablet PCs) to facilitate student learning.
— daniel Mar 28, 05:30 AM #
First, I wish commenters here understood the definition of technology. Even Landrum Kelly seems a massive believer in the ability of technology to determine how things are taught. Books, chalkboards, the classroom or lecture hall, the time schedule, chairs and desks – these are all technologies which can be used well for education or used poorly. So are data projectors, laptops, mobile phones, email, blogs, etc.
Different eras of human communication have always included differing tools. Literacy in ancient Greece changed the way education was delivered. That way was either good or bad depending on whether you believed in the essentialness of memory – but the technology triumphed. Gutenberg’s invention 500 years ago transformed things again – good or bad – books became widely available but half the languages of Europe vanished within 200 years – still, the technology triumphed. The chalkboard scared most educators as it spread widely through the 1840s and 1850s – good and bad no doubt, but yet again.
So you either use the technologies of the present or you use the technologies of the past. That is the choice, there is no “natural” learning environment in schooling.
But please do not use technology badly – the classic powerpoint which is nothing more than the filmstrip of the 21st Century – and then complain about it. If your students have these amazing interactive machines with them – use them – use the ability to seek information instantly, use the ability to communicate, use the ability to share and display. Say, “Please look that up for me,” or “Please find an opposing argument,” or “Is there support for that if you search the journals in the library?” or “Send that to the class.” or “Text your friends and we’ll do a survey.” or even, “Does what I’m saying seem to be true if you look it up?”
If you use these ICT devices with their potential, and your students potential, in mind, you will discover that technology really can change education.
Don’t believe me? Would teaching chemistry change if there was no lab equipment? Would teaching English change if there was no paper? Would teaching in the rain change if there was no roof?
— Ira Socol Mar 28, 08:44 AM #
Just because a technology exists does not mean that it contributes to student learning. I try to run semi-controlled experiments by using various technologies/techniques in some sections and classes and not using them in others and then comparing student performance and satisfaction across the groups. I would hardly consider this approach perfect, but in the absence of scientific studies of the value of these technologies I do what I can.
In general, I have found that technologies for interacting outside of the classroom have been fantastic for learning. Blogs, websites and various messaging technologies help to keep students engaged. On the other hand, in the classroom, I have found that many technologies simply detract from the quality of discussion. Some technologies are valuable. I consider indispensable the ability to play audio and video clips in class. But, after discovering controlled experiments that found that students recall less from Powerpoint presentations than from writing on the blackboard, I have abandoned presentation software completely. Not only did my teaching and course ratings improve, but so too did student performance.
The point here is that this article (and much of this discussion) seems pretty course-grained. Some technologies have value. Others do not. What we really need so that schools and instructors can make informed decisions on what to purchase and to adopt is some serious (experimental) research that considers the relative value of these various technologies.
— os Mar 28, 09:10 AM #
os, I think makes some good points but also, re: my last comment, makes a couple of conceptual mistakes. First there is the implication that powerpoint is a technology but writing on the board is not. They are both technologies, and, in fact, they are both technologies with the same purpose – teacher-centered display of information for notetaking. Except that one is typically pre-prepared and the other created during class (a use difference, not a technological one, both technologies could be used either way), there would seem to be little difference between them to measure. So, what os is describing is the difference in his/her teaching with this display technology.
Second is the question of who should choose the technologies. Shouldn’t students – especially in personal-use devices – make the decisions based on their needs and preferences? Why would it matter – to learning – whether a student takes notes in a spiral notebook, a looseleaf notebook, on a laptop computer, or on their phone? (I realize that teachers have been trying to control this for ages – type of pen, type of notebook, must be in a blue book, but I have never heard a documented reason for it.). My best example is this – I always supply materials digitally, but many students (perhaps as many as half) choose to print them onto paper for reading and notetaking. I never object to this. But if I was to take printed material and put it on my phone to meet my preferences, at least half the educators I know would object.
In other words educators privilege one set of technologies over others due solely to their personal preferences, while denying students the same rights.
I work in special educational needs, and with students from “traditionally struggling groups,” so my view of this as an equity issue is probably clearer than most. But an equity issue it is.
— Ira Socol Mar 28, 09:25 AM #
Aaahh…nothing like the smell of chalk in the morning. Let’s let our classrooms be a welcome respite from our tech-obsessed lives, and everyone will be the better for it.
— Eric Mar 28, 09:44 AM #
I think that everybody including Judith Tabron would agree that technology should not drive teaching decisions. On the other hand, failure to consider new teaching techniques – whether using technology or not – is a mistake.
When we do our jobs right, we encourage our students to be lifelong learners. Surely college faculty members are capable of the same. If we do not continue to learn and explore and try new approaches to our work, we cannot expect any better from our students.
— C. Kelley Mar 28, 09:44 AM #
I taught my first online course in 1997 and won a California state award in 2000 for my online class. At my school that made me one of the early adopters. In 2007, our school switched course management systems from WebCT 4 to Blackboard Vista, and I ended up canceling all of my online classes and am now teaching only traditional face-to-face classes. So I guess I’m now in the Luddite camp.
The article assumes that professors are hesitant to adopt technology because they are, well, “stuck in the mud”. That’s not the case, in my experience. Instead, I find that technology decisions are made by administration and IT staff, often on the recommendation of the most persuasive sales presentation, rather than by the faculty.
I like the question “Would teaching Chemistry change if there was no lab equipment?” I have a similar question. Suppose your administration and support staff decided what lab equipment you needed, without faculty input. Would you be surprised if many faculty were reluctant to use it?
When it comes to technology, it doesn’t surprise me that faculty resist using these clunky, ugly, poorly designed and obviously inferior “enterprise systems.”
— Stephen Dean Gilbert Mar 28, 09:48 AM #
an “actual” definition of professor should read, “A person fanatically committed to a lifetime of teaching others about a discipline in which they are an expert. Also, someone who is equally terrified of learning something new. (especially applicable to technology).
It really depends on the professor. Some see how much time things like digital tests and Bb or D2L can save them. Others don’t realize that you have to invest some time into learning those technologies before you see a time savings (return on the time investment). In some regards with time on task, you have to take one step back to take 2 steps forward.
In my myriad of interactions with faculty helping them learn these technologies, I’ve found that a great predictor is how willing they are to negotiate uncertainty. Do they really enjoy learning new things, or are they “done” learning.
All the training in the world won’t help a faculty member who is done learning about new technology.
Luddites need to understand that merged course delivery and full fledged on-line delivery are going to be the new educational norm within 4 years. As soon as the large number of babyboomer members of the professorate retire, there will be a huge demographical tidal wave of e-learning.
— Academic Technology Trainer Mar 28, 09:52 AM #
Again – for Eric – I simply cannot resist – chalk is not a “technology”? If you go back to the 1840s you will see exactly – exactly – the same issues raised regarding the chalkboard and slate as are being raised here.
For Stephen Dean Gilbert – I agree. I hate chalkboards. I hate classrooms. I hate class schedules which limit discussion and semesters which cut off learning after 16 weeks. Yes. We are all, in ways big and small, imprisoned by the decisions of our administrators. We either make the best of it – or we fail to make the best of it.
Please remember, technology is NOT “anything invented after your birth.” Technology are the tools we humans create to empower ourselves in the world.
I would like the academic freedom to break free of the university structure just as Mr. Gilbert wants to break free of university ICT decisions, and so we fight for what we believe our students need. But we do not do that by insisting that 15th Century (or 19th Century) technology always trumps that of the present day.
Perhaps Eric wants to spend class time on the cutting of quills and the making of ink from ashes (“aaahh, nothing like the smell of ink and feathers in the morning”) but I bet his students are ready to move on.
— Ira Socol Mar 28, 09:54 AM #
I am going to quote Judith Tabron’s piece (which I loved) because I think she actually echoes some of the apparently negative voices here:
“All too many tools facilitate less-desirable teaching methods. My IT colleagues often observe that what course-management systems like Blackboard do well is deliver material. Here’s your stuff: Read it, absorb it, review it. What the systems do not do well is facilitate interaction. Here are your peers and teachers: Listen, talk, challenge, answer, try, fail, try again. Both the true liberal-arts curriculum and the online world are examples of revolutions in communication. We have to figure out how to use the latter in service to the former.”
“I do not mean one-time purchases of glitzy software. The investments that have the greatest impact provide a physical space and put properly trained people in it, people who can help faculty members try new things in teaching.”
Tabron most emphatically is NOT advocating for IT-driven decision making or the use of deadening tools like PowerPoint or the standard usage of course management systems. She makes a very strong argument that teaching must come first.
— C. Kelley Mar 28, 10:00 AM #
This is the esame discussion I have heard multiple times- ‘way back to using films in classrooms. The simple summary is that what and why we are teaching drives our choice of tools- be they chalk, paper, conversation or anything else. Considering a multitude of tools will help ensure that all students learn- and they may even learn a new way of learning.
Think twice, then select the tool, and be prepared to try another —
A long time teacher & instructor K-12 to University-
— mary Mar 28, 10:12 AM #
Ok, to start, I am young(ish) and my professional background is as much in IT as education.
I applaud Landrum Kelly, os, and others of similar view.
Too often I see the drive to adopt the ‘new’ overwhelm the drive to adopt the ‘effective’. This is true in industry as well as in education.
Technology can improve education, obviously. However, it can also hinder. Adopt what is effective, not what is new.
Ira, you are missing the point that this is a discussion of /new/ technology, not technology in general.
— Dan Mar 28, 11:06 AM #
The assumption that universities and professors are suppose to be R&D labs for technology makers is the very first assumption that has to be challenged and then squarely addressed in all of this; we are not MIT trained enterpreneurial techies cash cows; the silliness, hype and rhetoric sounding everything associated with “(electronic) technology in education is remeiniscient of “programmed instructon” in the 1960 (another cash cow venture that is no more); here is a novel idea: universities need an “FDA” for electronic technology …every peice needs to go through a screening, testing and approval process before it can be brought to market and sold …poor parents are wondering why the cost of college is going up so dramatically as i watch the place I am at throwing out last year’s electronic purchasing mistake while they haul in this year’s electronic dreams and promises. I also laugh as there is no more mechanistic anf factory view of education that that of this electronic technology …that all of the research that has been donesays adds little to learning or teaching …other than as some many commenters note by facilitating out of class interactions between students rather than having them walk down to the caf and BS with each other as they should so that they will development of social skills and friends along with new knowledge
— jim Mar 28, 11:19 AM #
As several have commented, PowerPoint, Blackboard, etc. are just different methods for delivering course information (thank goodness we don’t have to hear the screech of chalk on the blackboard). Unfortunately, we too often focus on “teaching” methods — how do I deliver the material I’ve used in class and remain the sage on the stage using technology. Instead, we might shift toward a “learning” philosophy where we deliver material that engages our students, allows them to take responsibility for their own learning and develop the skills they will definitely need in the workplace to insure that we remain competitive in the world. It is these activities where technology excels if used correctly.
There are a number of resources available to faculty today in the form of learning objects that they can incorporate into their courses. One I ran across yesterday was CNN Interactive. It is a learning object that can be used free of charge and provides information on the Cold War. One component of this project was to let CNN readers develop a Cold War thriller. How incredible to blend information about the Cold War with encouraging readers to use their writing skills to develop a novel. We could certainly learn from these techniques. See http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/experience/culture/.
Another resource is Active Learning with PowerPoint by Paul Baepler. The material can be used to enhance faculty skills in using PowerPoint. It illustrates ways an instructor can incorporate interactive strategies, games and effective handouts using PowerPoint. In my experience, I’ve found faculty delivering slides that hurt my eyes (very pink backgrounds) and have not placed images correctly on the slide causing delivery problems. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=80688.
I encourage you to scan sites that have free learning objects that you can incorporate into your class like those found at http://www.merlot.org.
Technology is not always the right solution. But if we, as instructors don’t choose to learn how to use it effectively, we can’t blame the technology for the shortcomings. Just like we can’t blame the students if they are bored to death in our face-to-face class because we are talking at them and not engaging with them.
— Sue Mar 28, 11:39 AM #
Why not ask the students how they would like content to be presented? As faculty we should be flexible to meet the needs of our students’ learning preferences. I’m not saying that we should abandon our tried and true methods and strategies, nor am I saying that some forms of technology are the end all to a perfect class environment. We should, however, pay attention to how best to present the material, carefully selecting from our toolboxes the right tool for the task (pen and paper, whiteboard, PowerPoint, Blackboard, audio tape, document camera, etc.).
Remember, too, that technology is not only the tools of the trade but also the systematic approach to teaching (instructional design): know the audience and their needs, design and develop appropriate materials based on sound instructional objectives, incorporate sound implementation strategies, and use meaningful assessment/evaluation methods interspersed throughout the entire process.
And don’t forget to seek advice from your instructional support/faculty development unit (if you campus has one) and ask for ways to EFFECTIVELY use technology in the classroom. These units are the best of both worlds – they know the technologies and they know how best to use them for teaching and learning.
— JG Mar 28, 12:09 PM #
I began to teach at a new university recently. I was encouraged to use the “magic whiteboard”; you know, the TurningLeaf technology. You draw on the whiteboard with big clunky markers, and a sensor turns your drawings into JPEGS on the computer. The problem is that the batteries are always dying, the sensors miss pieces of your drawing, you have to erase with the special eraser, etc.
I managed to make obsolete this expensive technology with an item given to me for free. Now I draw on the board with regular markers, and when I’m done, I take a photo with my cellphone. Then I post it on Blackboard. This is SO much easier!
I find it neat how technology can leapfrog itself!
— J Mar 28, 12:45 PM #
Powerpoint slides can be useful if you’re teaching in a program that requires the graduates to take a certifying exam that is knowledge-based. Especially if the discipline is sorely lacking in regards to appropriate and high quality text books. I post my PPT slides on Blackboard for my students to review before class in addition to assigned reading if I’m lucky enough to have a text for that topic. Then we spend class time discussing the topic freely, and some of the students come prepared with answers. This allows the students to decide what they want to discuss as it pertains to the topic of the day. An interactive whiteboard and/or tablet PC also is very helpful when we’re working on math problems together in class.
— K Murphy Mar 28, 12:54 PM #
Dan: I am not missing the point, you are trying to find an artificial point which separates human technologies into “new” and “old,” and that is a massive conceptual mistake. Every technology has its plusses and minuses. Books are a frighteningly elitist technology, with huge investments required for their production and very controlled distribution channels. They disable as many students as they enable. But that does not make them “bad” as a technology, it simply means that we need to be aware of the limitations and use them appropriately. Chalkboards have led to amazingly boring teaching styles, but we rightly blame the teacher, not the technology of chalk, and we do not worry about the amount of money spent equipping schools with chalkboards. The US Mail is a brutally slow system, yet it has it’s values. The lecture hall puts half of all university students to sleep, yet universities keep building them.
I am simply asking for all technologies to be judged by the same standards.
— Ira Socol Mar 28, 01:47 PM #
For classroom technology like any other technology resource to be used extensively and effedctively, the campus HAS to look at the support framework and make sure that it is in proportion to the resources installed. I am reminded of a time when every governor worth his/her salt promised computers for all teachers. That was well and good; however, they forgot the other part of the equation – training and support that is needed to foster and sustain its effective use.
— Ravi Kallianpur Mar 28, 02:06 PM #
I’m not asking faculty to implement every technology available all the time…I’m merely asking them to be open-minded about them and to give them at least a try…to think outside of their boxes about their students, how their students interact, how their students learn, and how they can be benefitted by the new technologies.
What I find is that some faculty won’t give them a chance! The mere sound of a social network or podcast sending them scatterin, in my experience.
If you think I’m crazy, watch the YouTube video I have pasted the link to in this comment.
If you aren’t at least considering how you can use the technology the students are using, you’re becoming irrelevant. That’s the message the students are trying to get across to their teachers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
— Cathy Garland Mar 28, 04:43 PM #
In response to Jim’s comment (facilitating out of class interactions between students rather than having them walk down to the caf and BS with each other as they should so that they will development of social skills and friends along with new knowledge), the reality is that demographics are changing drastically. More of our students are working full or part time jobs and have difficulty coming into traditional class settings and have little time to get together in the normal social framework we’ve grown accustom to. Extraordinary social networks are developing all the time online and students are reaching out and leveraging the knowledge and skills of others around the world. Technology is advancing us to a worldwide rather than local social network and we are gaining insights we’ve never had the opportunity to leverage in the past.
— Sue Mar 28, 04:44 PM #
One comment I have not yet seen is how to balance the willingness of us ‘codger’ faculty to use electronic tools with the lack of redundancy in support systems. I cannot feel comfortable teaching an online course if the system goes down several times a semester. That said classes are now being held at worksites where it is a joy to find adequate lighting and classroom space. I know that the newer forms do not require an on site connection but remember after all of that only 40% of the population has access to broadband at home so no matter what I do my student who can see the last mile connected from her farm still cannot adequately participate in the online world.
— Jackie K Mar 28, 06:10 PM #
Everyone should read the comment #32 by J., and then read between the lines.
For teaching, faculty will most readily use the technologies they are comfortable with (and feel they have a modicum of control over). IMHO a key goal of the modern instructional technology evangelist should be to provide professional development that is centered on how emerging tools enhance productivity of the instructors outside of the teaching/learning loop.
Too often we (or administrators) promote the pedagogical benefits before the tool has any relevance in the life of the user.
You don’t go straight from driver’s ed to the Daytona 500. You make a lot of trips around town first.
— R. Boyd Mar 28, 06:48 PM #
Judith Tabron started all this! A fine interaction it has been, too, and quality education has always been about engaging students, not talking at them. Well, we as your students, Professor Tabron, have at least engaged one another, as you have engaged us, and those who came to learn have learned. We leave this thread in inevitable disagreement, but we also leave with questions in mind, and so I say to you, Professor Tabron, what I always said of my best professors when student evaluations first came my way as an undergraduate many eons ago: “She made me think!” I do not know what the solutions are, but I have some new questions. In my field of political theory, it doesn’t get any better than that. Thank you! As a footnote, I leave with a question of my own: How do we transfer and transform those many hours that our students spend online into activities that promote sound education rather than simply screwing around online? I am open to all possible suggestions, and not because I fear being a fossil. (I passed that point during the Pleistocene.) I myself waste too many hours online. What is going to save US? If we cannot save ourselves from the new distractions, then how can we help guide our students? It just goes to show that, when we do get used to using technology, we learn to teach ourselves, and that has alway been the goal of a truly excellent education. One never knows where students are going to go with all of the new ways of interacting that are available to them, but that is alright, too, unless we are intent upon trying to clone ourselves through the educational process. Please google my own site through my name and enter the world of the anarchist/pacifist ideal. As for those of you who thought you had me typed, try avoiding stereotypes. Think! Inquire! Probe! Some of the biggest reactionaries I know are eighteen to twenty-two years of age. Some are a bit older. . . .
— Landrum Kelly Mar 28, 07:02 PM #
I’ll second the desire to continue the conversation, understanding that every period of technological change in communication is extremely difficult for educators. The Greeks battled over literacy 2600 years ago. Monks attacked Gutenberg 500 years ago. Teachers panicked over “dime novels” 130 years ago, and radio would surely turn children into “passive fools” 75 years ago.
The unfamiliar is always a threat. And we forget that technology is something we learn to use to our advantage – that is one of the things that makes us human.
My strong support for the embrace of 21st Century ICT is based in historical reality and historical inevitability, as well as in a strong belief that the right flexibility in technology can finally move US education beyond the 25% success rate it has been stuck at for so very long. But that doesn’t mean that I suggest that universities (or schools) be blind consumers. In fact I have never seen any group spend more for less than the educational sector. If you visit my blog
http://speedchange.blogspot.com/
you will see a consistent emphasis on free, ubiquitous, simple to use technologies – on the tools students carry with them when they come to your campus, and the tools they can carry with them when they leave. Why Blackboard or Angel? I often wonder, when I could do most of the same things more easily with Google groups – and add more live interaction besides. Why indeed Microsoft Office when Lotus Symphony is free? Why clickers when mobile phone text messages allow far more interaction – and students already own them?
Anyway, as we keep discussing, here and elsewhere, remember that it is all technology, and the best educators will work with their students to find the information and communication technologies which best support each student’s learning needs as they meet the course content.
— Ira Socol Mar 28, 08:51 PM #
Landrum Kelly wrote in comment #40, “Judith Tabron started all this! A fine interaction it has been, too, and quality education has always been about engaging students, not talking at them.” I would like to point out with as little irony as I can that the interaction we have had around this topic has been facilitated by technology!
We’re interacting from different places and at different times, but the technology (a blog, in this case) makes it possible to overcome those boundaries. We’re also bringing to the discussion our interest in the topic, our experiences, and our questions—important ingredients in any learning experience. The technology can’t provide those ingredients, but it can make possible and often enhance learning experiences that rely on those ingredients.
I think that it’s important for instructors to seek out new ways to engage their students and to assess and be responsive to their students’ learning, whether or not technology is involved. Sometimes, however, technology enables new kinds of learning experiences and more productive learning experiences that are surprisingly profound.
— Derek Mar 29, 07:56 AM #
I was particularly struck by Landrum Kelly’s question: does the technology advance or hinder the teaching mission?
It seems clear to me that the teaching mission is to prepare students to be successful not only in school, but in their personal and professional lives after school. This mission requires at a minimum the need for students to be able to access, evaluate, and communicate information. They need to be competent in using information technology tools to do so. They also need to be able to effectively work with people from different ethnic groups in a global village. Finally, they need to have an attitude that learning is a life-long process and know that this attitude is critical to their success in life and in the workforce.
Consequently, we need to ensure that the pedagogical strategies used by faculty members focus directly on developing these competencies in their students. In most cases, this requires a change of instructional paradigms—from passive to active (authentic) learning strategies, such as project-based learning, problem-based learning, and inquiry-based learning enhanced by Web 2.0 information technology tools.
The challenge is how to assist faculty members to be receptive to adopting more active learning teaching strategies enhanced by technology. My approach to addressing this problem is described at http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/seminars/ELME.html
James L. Morrison
Editor-in-Chief
Innovate
http://innovateonline.info
— James L. Morrison Mar 29, 11:30 AM #
“I would like to point out with as little irony as I can that the interaction we have had around this topic has been facilitated by technology!” Of course it has been facilitated by technology, Derek, but, if this is the “new new” that someone described above, then most of us have been using it for a long time. Interactive blogs are hardly out-of-date, but they (in various incarnations) have been around for quite a while. The CONTINUING and DAILY challenge to me is always to engage the student(s) intellectually, so that they actually want to participate, and that challenge persists across time. It still exists in the chalk-and-blackboard classroom (which is hardly dead, by the way, by virtue of its very simplicity); it still exists in journal articles and their well-thought-out and well-written responses; and it still exists in various forums such as Photo.net and other sites that encourage interaction on a variety of technical problems relevant to the field in question. Speed of interaction is not always the sine qua non of how profound the interaction is. What one wants above all is not the quick response (which is all too often the merely flippant response that some persons have exhibited on this thread), but the thoughtful and sustained individual response. I would not want to abandon the physical classroom simply for the virtual classroom, anymore than I would want to abandon the ponderous pace of academic journals in favor of the instant exchanges among and between airheads that are visible all over the web. I want it ALL, and I want it to appropriate to the particular goal in question at the time. In other words, I shall continue to ask the question, “Does the [particular] technology advance or hinder the [particular] teaching mission?” The question is not and has never been whether TECHNOLOGY advances teaching, but WHICH technology advances WHICH teaching mission? Not every assignment is project-based, nor a matter of group participation. Sometimes an assignment or a challenge requires a thoughtful response—and sometimes that requires sustained individual reflection in private, away from the “noise” of constant, instant communication. Being wired all the time is not equivalent to being educated. Not everything we want to accomplish is a matter of ten-second chess. Thought trumps blabbing every time. Too many students think that they are engaged when they are simply blabbing away. There will not be a technological solution to the thoughtless or empty-headed response. Someone who gets a message instantly and responds just as instantly might think that he is cutting edge, but he might be simply shallow. When I have taught both graduate and undergraduate courses via closed-circuit networks (which I have done for over fifteen years but am not doing now), I have still found the limiting factor NOT to be the technology MOST of the time. (The technology was particularly frustrating at first, I confess.) The technical problems are yielding rapidly. The enduring problems and challenges of teaching and learning should yield so quickly. If I teach a course on the Philosophy of Social Science, which I am currently teaching, and if I ask the students to read at least the first page of Einstein’s 1905 article on electrodynamics, which I have, then I want someone as a student who recognizes that the critical point for Einstein (and for us as readers of what is now a quite elementary piece of physics) is his remark, “If we postulate that the speed of light is constant. . . .” If I cannot get that point across, THAT WE HAVE TO ASSUME SOMETHING, and that not every assumption is equally promising or fruitful, whether online or in the physical classroom, then I have failed to convey something essential about all scientific inquiry, whether it be in the physical or social sciences. In other words, the limiting factor is less and less the technology, but the enduring challenges of what has always made for good intellectual exchange: thoughtful and timely responses to well-thought-out questions. You will not find those in courses in either “education” or “IT,” nor even in the various disciplines per se, much less the awarding of the Ph.D. or some other credential. The art of teaching transcends technology as it transcends credentials, and it always will. For all I know, neither Socrates nor Plato nor Aristotle nor Augustine nor Aquinas. . . nor Rawls nor Dworkin, et al. ever used even a blackboard in class or in their writings. It does not even matter. What is finally important across the centuries is NOT reducible to a technical problem. I am sorry if that offends anyone, but it really is true. I do not disparage technology (any old technology, including that old standby that we call “language”), but the challenge facing the typical professor and the typical student is no longer quick communication—if it ever was. The daily challenge is preparation—on the part of both student and professor (who is simply a life-long student if she is any good). If you can package a solution to THAT problem, the problem of intellectual preparation and reflection, then we will buy it from you, and we will use it. Try us. Those who simply want to make more and more tools available, and to show us how to use them, are always welcome.
What we fear are the ones who think that technology alone can save us, and some persons on this thread have quite remarkably and surprisingly said something very closely resembling precisely that. Thank goodness for the rest of you, whom I presume to be in the majority. Your genius and your assistance are always appreciated. You are teachers, too, and, if we are any good, we will be your students. I hope that none of my remarks out of context portray me as a Luddite. If they are, then I can only say, “Contexto es todo.” Context is everything. I am sorry that it takes so many words to get my points across, and, yes, I am grateful that this particular kind of discussion is made possible by the blog that we are using—but most of all I am grateful to the person who wrote the article, which turned out to be much more profound than I imagined. I apologize if I suggested otherwise at the outset.
— Landrum Kelly Mar 29, 09:50 PM #
Lest we forget, that person is Judith Tabron, director of faculty computing services at Hofstra University.
— Landrum Kelly Mar 29, 09:58 PM #
In needing to “assume something” I hope that Landrum Kelly, in his teaching, does not always equate speed of response with lack of thought, or time spent on an answer with wisdom. I have seen flippant remarks and miserable books which have obviously taken much time time to compose, and I have seen groups develop fascinating lines of thought through rapid collaborations – collaborations which can now be made all the more possible because of breakthroughs in ICT which allow distance to be conquered – distance not only from potential learning collaborators but from data itself.
So I think Landrum Kelly has it wrong. The question is not which technology advances which teaching mission. Of that, I really do not care. The question today is how can technologies be combined to advance a learner’s learning process, and a community’s learning process, and a society’s learning process? The power of contemporary ICT is not in how it will be used by those traditionally in power, but in how it will empower those with a need to know, to discover, to study, to communicate, and to invent.
For those institutions which purport to offer educations the question becomes – how can we demonstrate the powers and limitations of the various tools we possess in the variety of situations learners will experience? How can we help them build a technological vocabulary – a technological menu – which will enable learners to make their own appropriate choices?
Do I invest the time listening to your lecture in person or simply take it on my iPod? Do I use my time hunting through a million Google Scholar responses or seek faculty guidance? Do I gather with other learners via Google Docs, Skype call, or in a conference room? Do I take this class at my university or just study it on my own starting with on-line materials from MIT? Do I write this up for a professional journal that will be read by 62 people three years from now or blog it today when I think it can help people? Even – do I whisper to my classroom neighbor or email them or text them?
There are, obviously, no right or wrong answers to any of those questions. There are only choices. And those choices are best left to the learners, who will need to learn the effectiveness of those choices not just for “school” – but for a lifetime of learning.
— Ira Socol Mar 29, 11:46 PM #
“The question is not which technology advances which teaching mission. Of that, I really do not care. The question today is how can technologies be combined to advance a learner’s learning process, and a community’s learning process, and a society’s learning process?” —Ira David Socol
I would hope, Ira, that teaching missions and learning processes might actually be logically linked in some way. I am also delighted when someone labeled a “student” has a teaching mission for me, as his or her own student du jour. I am not “into” the academic hierarchy, either, or at least let me say that I am not comfortable with it—and so I am not threatened when students set the agenda by their questions or their comments, or by challenges to the content of the syllabus.
The point is not (as a “teacher”) to maintain oneself in a position of power, but to be a more effective facilitator of learning for those who still feel that institutions of higher education still have something to offer. I last went back to grad school for two years in 1999 at the age of fifty-four—this time in Spanish. Going back to school is not for everyone, and most learning, as we both know, does not take place in the classroom. As long as people seek the classroom experience, however, some of us are going to want to be there with them, to teach them and to learn from them, to empower them, and to be empowered by them in turn—regardless of which side of the lectern we are on, if indeed we must have the lectern. I would personally prefer that we have conversations, and I do value technologies which promote conversations—although I am not so enamored as you of the e-mailing or the text messaging that continues in class in spite of my urgent pleas that cell phones be turned off, and in spite of my assurances that students can actually survive for fifty entire minutes at a stretch without nervous breakdowns when their electronic world is actually put on temporary hold.
There are a lot of things wrong with higher education, and there is far too much authoritarianism in the system, and I think that it is actually getting worse. I happen to be among those who think that I can do more about that from inside than out, but I respect those who can do it from outside.
“[D]o I whisper to my classroom neighbor or email them or text them?” No, I really am not authoritarian in the least, but, if you or anyone else were to try to start e-mailing or text messaging in one of my classes, then I would ask you to leave, upon the assumption that you can do that some other time or somewhere else, but that a given classroom at a given hour is reserved for the subject of the course and the topic of the day.
Thank you.
— Landrum Kelly Mar 30, 03:04 AM #
“No, I really am not authoritarian in the least, but, if you or anyone else were to try to start e-mailing or text messaging in one of my classes, then I would ask you to leave, upon the assumption that you can do that some other time or somewhere else, but that a given classroom at a given hour is reserved for the subject of the course and the topic of the day.” – Landrum Kelly
I would just recommend that you look at one of the many studies of the value of “back-channel” communication in classrooms. Or re-read what I wrote in Comment #18 about helping to direct and aim that back channel (or even read my last blog entry
http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2008/03/cognitive-authority.html
on the power of that back channel when incorporated into classroom learning). I guess that I also hope that a university professor is beyond “sending students to the principal’s office” (or throwing them out of class) because they’ve either passed a note to a friend or written a non class related comment in their notebook (these are identical activities to what you have described, simply involving contemporary technologies).
I do appreciate that you “prefer that we have conversations” but perhaps it is possible to have valuable “conversations” within a classroom environment which do not involve the instructor – and which, through that magic of technology do not require us to shout across the room or otherwise interrupt other activities.
If this were really ‘about’ learning rather than power in the classroom Landrum Kelly would not distinguish between paper distraction and high tech distraction, logged-in blathering vs. in-person blathering, or electronic device inattention vs. the not insignificant percentage of students who simply slept through classes when I was an undergraduate. But all those distinctions, I might argue, could be made because the present group of students fails to match the behavior patterns of the present faculty when they were students, and this may be troubling in an arena devoted to social reproduction.
I understand – as Landrum Kelly says – that “the classroom” – that teacher-centered rectangular space with discrete times for learning and specific forms of conversation – is a technology, in and of itself. Not for everyone, and surely not where most education occurs. But I also know that until educational institutions give up on their monopoly in the “credential” business, that many students who get little or nothing out of the traditional classroom will be forced into them. So up until that time I believe that the classroom experience must change, and the power dynamic in the classroom must change. So I will leave you with three ideas I consider essential to that “new” classroom: “instructional tolerance,” “community cognition,” “collective intelligence.”
— Ira Socol Mar 30, 05:50 AM #
It is not an either or, us versus them, but how do we solve this together. Galbraith wrote long before podcasting and streaming media that “A challenge in using interactive educational technologies is to develop or adapt instructional tools that are compatible with the participation of the learners and the required interaction between the learner and the learning experience. Despite all the technological advances with educational technologies, this advice still holds true. Oh BTW, PPT is NOT interactive.
What is missing is the leadership and support across campuses to systematically address the needs of learners and faculty with the support of instructional specialists and and IT systems folks and time and money to invest in proper solutions. Vendors who push “innovative” technologies for the educational environment often do so in chase of the almightly $$ rather than to improve the learning process.
This is a multidisciplinary problem and should be addressed accordingly.
— M Lafayette Mar 30, 10:14 AM #
Ira (#48), a request works very well, thank you, by which I mean that I only have to ask that the errant text messenger wait until later to contact his girlfriend. I have never had to do more to get compliance—although I would not hesitate to ask someone to leave if he or she really did become disruptive. Most students seem to comprehend the logic of my argument in a way that you obviously cannot. Of course, I have the luxury of small classes, where we can all work together as a group. Please do not try to cast me as something as I am not. I run a comfortable classroom in which things actually get done, and everyone gets to say what he or she wants to say. I can see, however, why fiction is your forte. You are good at it.
— Landrum Kelly Mar 30, 08:56 PM #
As one who has been involved in computing since the Grace Hopper era, please let me apologize to the authors of all of these earnest posts for having been among those who were either directly or indirectly responsible for turning information technology loose on the world. :-)
— CW Mar 30, 10:03 PM #
Not wanting to drag this out beyond this comment, Landrum Kelly, but you stated (and I don’t think out-of-context) “if you or anyone else were to try to start e-mailing or text messaging in one of my classes, then I would ask you to leave.” And I stated that this seemed an example of picking on the technology rather than the task (can a student pen a letter to his girlfriend in his paper notebook without arousing your wrath instantly?) and perhaps about assuming that these technology uses were necessarily unrelated to your students’ work with the course content.
I’m not trying to make you out to be anything, but I keep trying to suggest that there are many, many ways to involve these feared technologies directly into your instruction – to gain a measure of input into how they are used – and thus to not only expand the ways we reach and engage students but also to help them learn how to use these technologies appropriately – because use them they will, for the rest of their lives.
Are there technological and etiquette differences between a small conversational class and a 400-student lecture? Absolutely. But the example which I asked you to read took place in a seminar with 12 students.
But thank you for mentioning my fiction writing. I do think that I am pretty good at it.
— Ira Socol Mar 31, 12:00 AM #
Based on your Amazon listings, Ira, you are doing a lot better than I am. Actually, I tested my own reactions to text messaging in class today. I actually tended to let it go (as I think that I usually do), but when three members of a class of six were texting with other persons outside the class at one point, I had to call for a momentary hiatus—for their own sakes, since I was discussing paper requirements. It can be a bit disconcerting to look out at a class and see just how many students are fiddling with cellphones as well. It’s a bother primarily because I will be getting questions from the same students later. It is simply a matter of paying attention, I think, and, when one loses the class, then sometimes it is one’s own fault, and sometimes it is not. It is the usual judgment call as to when to emphasize the need for attention. I do not think that the technology has changed that all too much. As for sleeping in class, I generally assume that someone is sleepy and I leave them alone. I think that I tend to be the same about electronic devices within reason, and I certainly do not insist that persons come to my classes, but, when they do, it seems to me only polite to at least try to be a part of the class when possible. I doubt that our styles in class would be all that different—live and let live where possible. I’ve enjoyed our exchanges, since I think that we both have hopes that ideas can trump existing power relationships—even though those in charge of grades and other evaluations (not to mention salaries) are going to try to exert control in new technological venues as well. Sometimes the IT people are simply caught in the middle. It gets complicated, and I hope that my off-the-cuff responses are not being taken too literally. Sometimes I am responding to the latest frustration, such as our president’s announcing that every course would have to be on Blackboard [sigh], and that “We will be watching to see who is using it!” [double sigh] The true authoritarians will either try to co-opt the new technology—or to ban it. I’ve been really roasted for e-mailing the entire faculty—after the administration removed the faculty listserv. It has been a struggle, and “it’s a different world from where you [or I] come from.”
— Landrum Kelly Mar 31, 11:15 PM #
I like posting to these threads simply to watch Landrum Kelly rant and to see how easily it is to get his goat! It appears that LK has an awful lot of free time on his hands…
— Lee Apr 3, 12:04 PM #
Lee, here is your previous post (#13) that came in right behind mine: “‘Old school’ (literally, in this case) faculty will cling to what is known to them until they are forced into retirement, kicking and screaming about relative relevance of their political theory/philosophy classes.”
In philosophy, we call your approach the “ad hominen” attack. It is an attack on the person rather than a response to ideas.
In philosophy we also like to ask people to define their terms, and so perhaps you could tell us what “relative relevance” means.
Apparently my age bothers you. As I said before, time is not on your side, sonny.
Cheers.
— Landrum Kelly Apr 3, 12:52 PM #