Fred Kemp writes:I've put most of my efforts these last three years into developing a web application that will make student-to-student interactivity easier for the students, for I believe that the concepts that lead to better teaching are much less effective in bringing about change than the functions of the instructional environment. I've come to an understanding that is, perhaps, antithetical to the scholarly or intellectualist point of view, and that is that what people do affects their thinking, rather than the usual position that it is what they think that affects their doing. Technology, as Drucker said in a front page Wall Street Interview on Jan 1, 2000, is what most encourages change. When asked by an interviewer what will change education, he said "Traditionally, schools have not been changed by the needs of society or the change in knowledge, but by external technology." The technology, which directly affects functionality and behavior, is what stimulates change. The _ideas_ that arise out of theory and research make for nice magazine articles and books but rarely affect widespread behaviors, especially in fields as conservative as literature and composition.
By creating web applications and programs that employ the browser interface, I have begun to transcend the need for technology training, since the web interface is becoming universal and something that most people gain facility with on their own. So how do I prepare new tutors and teachers to work online? I simply build easier and obviously more useful ways to do things, and the teachers gradually migrate to those processes. Over my 12 years working with people who are at various stages in acclimating to technology
I've come to two conclusions:(1) You can't force technology on people
(2) People who really want to use computer technology and are not being coerced into doing so, figure out themselves how to use it. The only people who need to be trained are the dubious, the hesitant, the recalcitrant, and the coerced, and for them training doesn't work anyway.