(cross posted at http://www.techlearning.com/section/Blogs)
Technology is a great educational resource and tool. There are literally thousands of types of technology, software, and hardware out there for educators and students to use. But what happens when a school requires students to have a specific brand of technology?
Many colleges require students to have a laptop and if they don't own one, they can get one at a discount through the school. Other colleges issue the students laptops with the cost included in the tuition and fess. Some schools now require students to purchase iPhone's or iPod Touches. While I'm all for students having great technology tools, I have a problem with schools mandating the brand or system that students use.
The iPhone is a cultural and business phenomenon. Apple has sold millions of them around the world and it is difficult to go one day without seeing someone using one. The iPhone, and iPod Touch, have a huge number of great applications that are useful to students and educators. But does that mean that students should have to use it at a school? What happened to freedom to choose and a free market? Along the same lines, some schools or departments at schools, require their students to purchase Mac's instead of PC's. Other schools require students to purchase Windows based laptops.
This is not a good thing. Restricting students to a certain brand, company or system is wrong. Students should be allowed to purchase what ever brand or system that they are comfortable with. In this day and age, it doesn't really matter which system you have, you can do anything you need to. Mac's have Microsoft Office on them, Windows can do video, audio, and graphics. Web based applications like Google Docs, Zoho, and more mean that the operating system doesn't really matter anymore. Other smart phones can do what the iPhone can do. I did a comparison of the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and Palm Pre systems and found that every educational application available on the iPhone has some sort of counterpart on the other systems. All of them can go to the Internet, get email, view videos, view documents, take pictures, text message, and more. In fact, some of them have more educational tools available than the iPhone.
What about service contracts? A student with a phone from Verizon or Sprint shouldn't have to switch to AT&T because their school requires them to have an iPhone. They also shouldn't have to carry two devices if they keep their own smart phone and have to purchase an iPod Touch for school. If they already have an iPhone, they shouldn't have to switch to Windows Mobile, or Blackberry because the school wants them to.
Schools need to stay away from dictating the brand or system that students should have, and instead list what students should be able to do with their own laptop or smart phone. Schools need to also make sure that their applications are system independent. Lectures, applications, documents, and more should be able to be used on Mac, Windows, Linux, Palm, Android, Blackberry, or any other system. Schools should spend their time on making sure that students can use any system instead of pushing students towards a specific system.
Freedom of choice and a free market system are the only way to encourage inventiveness and allow students to be comfortable with their technology. Let the companies do the marketing for their products. Schools should do the educating.
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2 comments:
I don't have time for a detailed reply, but you ignore the fact that allowing the kind of freedom you call for comes at a very steep price and ultimately REDUCES what a school can do with technology to the lowest common denominator. Mandating certain types of technology allows faculty to innovate and try new things because they know students will have the tools needed. There is little more discouraging to tech innovation than a teacher trying something new with technology only to find that a sizable percentage of students had tech problem and couldn't complete the assignment.
A student walks into the Technology Department with a laptop full of malware (or bad sectors on a hard drive, or a quirky driver issue, or ...) making the laptop virtually unusable. A school with uniformity of laptops and images can have the student back in business in literally minutes with very little Technology Department staff time needed. A school which allows students to purchase any laptop hardware or OS they want either has to throw enormous labor resources towards supporting these kinds of issues (resources that could be used to facilitate new or better uses of technology!) or they have to limit support to offering a few suggestions and let students and parents waste enormous amounts of their own time and/or money solving these problems. Not only is this a waste of students/parents time and money, it will also sour THEM toward the use of technology which can be devastating to any program.
But what about this scenario - I know people who hate Apple products, and don't like using them or even understand some of the commands and software. Why should they be forced to change what they use? How about Apple users who love Apple and despise Windows? Why should any of them have to change what they use, or even leave behind some applications that they use a lot, just because a school can't support things? This is why I am a big supporter of web apps and other platform independent applications.
Also, my alma mater has an IT dept that supports Windows, Linux and Apple. Do you know why? Because they believe that students, and faculty, should have the ability and freedom to use what works best for them. Some departments use Apple, others use Windows and most of the computer science guys use those and Linux. It is not the IT department's job to maintain everyone's computer. Yet, they are able to. They can repair any of the three systems, and have images for all three. But, since students usually come with their own laptops, and image is useless because it will not have all the software that every student uses. Instead, the IT department has training and tutorials to help students do their own maintenance.
Flexibility is the key. Schools should not be in the business of mandating technology. That stifles it's use more than having students use different systems. I personally make sure that any thing I am doing with my students is platform independent. It is either web based, or some kind of open source or standardized app, such as documents that can be read by any office software. Most of my documents are sent out in pdf form, which anyone can read. We need to keep schools more open in terms of the technology they use.
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