Review of Teachers and Techno-Literacy: Managing Literacy, Technology and Learning in Schools

Teachers and Techno-Literacy by Colin Lankshear and Ilana Snyder, with Bill Green
Allen and Unwin 2000
ISBN: 1-86448-946-4    $32.95 (Australian)   178 pp.

Review by Tracy Clark
Purdue University

Teachers and Techno-Literacy: Managing Literacy, Technology, and Learning in Schools is a book that's certainly worthy of its title. It reflects our overriding interest in helping teachers become more comfortable with technology in their classrooms – while making sure that we maintain the appropriate focus on those educational subjects that our students have been pursuing all along.
          Colin Lankshear and Ilana Snyder, with Bill Green, have provided a thoroughly insightful and enjoyable – yet often (appropriately) troubling – look at the role of technology in K-12 Australian schools. American readers will encounter a number of terms, initiatives, and hierarchies different from their own. However, the book's key premise – that educators' primary goal in teaching with technology must remain enhancing the educational experience while avoiding implicit and explicit temptation to use computers primarily for operational training – mirrors a struggle we have faced in the United States, particularly since the Internet achieved widespread availability in our K-12 institutions during the past few years.
          The book, which combines several case studies with theoretical and pedagogical arguments, is organized into six chapters:

Those readers who are more interested in "the bottom line" than in the several case studies can certainly pick up most of the book's main points by skipping to the last two chapters. However, understanding of all points – and there are many vital ones throughout – is better achieved by reading the case studies, because they help illuminate and synthesize both the book's practical suggestions and its theoretical discussions.
          The first of the authors' concerns appears to be resources: funding, availability, and connectivity. A couple of the schools profiled in the book had considerable amounts budgeted toward buying cutting-edge equipment and regularly maintaining currently-held machines. However, those schools were likely to restrict student access to use within those classes in which they were enrolled, and only during class time. With expensive equipment and no guarantees of supervision, unlimited access was deemed too risky. The other schools included in the study had a variety of issues that further impeded effective use of technology on a regular basis: outdated computers, few computers on hand to accommodate hundreds, constant freeze-ups and other malfunctions, possession of inexpensive software more suited to recreational than educational uses of technology, lack of Internet access because of prohibitive costs in rural areas, limited supervision of students and – particularly distressing to the authors – only one or two faculty members able to make effective use of technology in their classrooms. At any rate, those students enrolled in schools with more resources and Internet access were, overall, more able to make effective use of technology in their learning practices than were students in rural, impoverished schools.
          The second issue that the authors address is teacher interest and competency. Like their American counterparts, Australian teachers who use technology in the classroom, even on an occasional basis, are often viewed by their colleagues as "the computer person" in their schools and departments. As such, they are often expected to serve at once as teacher, trainer, fix-it person, spokesperson – and, all too often, as scapegoat when resource limitations, parental complaints, and government initiatives pushing for more technology in the schools present themselves. The implications of such attitudes are amplified many-fold when students are thrown into the mix. Students who were assigned to teachers who were technologically savvy, and who enthusiastically implemented computers into their subjects' curriculum, did Power Point presentations, designed informational web sites, and put together electronic photo albums, as well as studied "traditional" materials from textbooks and lectures. But often, when they were promoted to the next grade level, their use of technology in the classroom diminished or ceased altogether because they were now with teachers who were either uncomfortable with technology or unwilling to incorporate it into their lesson plans. And sometimes, tech savvy teachers left their posts – leaving behind teachers who weren't as highly invested in developing technology/literacy initiatives, and students who wondered who pulled the plug (so to speak). As the authors note, using one of the schools as a specific example, "The continued use of technology for literacy purposes...was susceptible to disarray, even dismantlement, because it depended on two 'technology stars' who initiated and nurtured the activities. The rest of the teachers were less skilled, confident and motivated to explore the possible uses of the technologies in their own classes" (17).
          The third – and most important – matter is that of implementing technology while remaining focused on subject literacy. Do middle school history students, for instance, get plenty of chances to learn about and analyze important historical events – by reading and writing – while they receive instruction on how to use Macromedia Flash to create interactive timelines? Is the school's only French teacher forced to forego subject related professional development ventures each summer, so that she will instead have time to overhaul the school's technological infrastructure because she happens to have more computer hardware experience than do her colleagues? Lankshear, Snyder, and Green save the bulk of this discussion for their last two chapters, likely because, as they demonstrate throughout, we cannot gain a strong foot-hold on this issue without first gaining a clearly articulated perspective on the subjects of access and teacher interests/competencies. To put it more bluntly: we put lots of effort into pushing for as many technological toys, gadgets, and trends into our classes as we can – and not nearly enough energy into training teachers in basic use of these resources, or ensuring that students implement them in ways that enhance (but not replace) the already existing curriculum. The book's predominant thread – indeed, its battle cry – is balance and continuity. The authors, and many of us in the field in Australia, the United States, and all other countries whose teachers and administrators use and emphasize technology in our classrooms and curricula, raise the important concern that we may unwittingly sacrifice quality of education in the quest to assert a stance of innovation and proactivity. The authors lay much of the blame on corporations, who have been increasingly aggressive in their efforts to "wire" the world's classrooms. In the United States, these corporations are Microsoft and the many computer manufacturers who place bids whenever a school wishes to buy new computers – and, unlike Australian schools which are directly operated by the state, American school systems are themselves corporations, operating under comparatively loosely defined educational guidelines set up by each individual state.
          Reading this book is, at times, similar to going through an intellectual obstacle course. An American reader must establish a basis for comparison between his or her own school systems and those of Australia. All readers need to keep straight which school is which; after first mention and description, the schools are referred to by name only, and we find ourselves challenged to remember whether a given school is the one with up-to-date technology but with phone service that is too expensive to make the Internet a viable option, or the one that has its students working with HyperCard, or the one with Internet service but few teachers willing or able to make use of it. Additionally, the authors often invoke necessary disclaimers related to what, exactly, constitutes a "representative" school, the fact that they studied these schools for a very limited amount of time, and the fact that within each school, they studied only a few grade levels and teachers.
          However, if we approach the book as a whole – not as a collection of six chapters – we will have a much greater chance of realizing the book's overriding benefit: that of being an insightful and valuable resource encouraging us to work together, ask for advice, plan ahead...and, most importantly, to further learning initiatives by thinking beyond technology. Those of us who have a passion for implementing the latest technological trends into our teaching may find this last bit a little distasteful, but as all of have probably experienced at least once, technology doesn't always work.
          But, as Lankshear, Snyder, and Green demonstrate through their effective mix of comprehensiveness and detail, it often does – often enough to apply what we learn from those bad days to a proactive approach to "managing the equal relationship between literacy, technology, and learning in schools"!

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