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Teaching With the Tools Kids Really Use: Learning With Web and Mobile Technologies ReviewThis book is aimed at educators (school administrators, teachers and support staff) who are situated at the entry or early adoption levels of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use in their schools and classrooms. The central premise of the material presented is easily stated: there is a range of mobile technologies and Web-based tools that have yet to gain widespread acceptance in mainstream education. But this proposition is little appreciated and often misrepresented and/or misunderstood. Fortunately, there is a technology-based revolution in teaching and learning just waiting for chances to occur and the author, Brooks-Young, positions herself on the frontier between ignorance, prejudice and enlightenment to play a part in bringing it about. The description of emerging technologies provided is well structured. Each of the substantive chapters features introductory/contextualizing and background remarks to selected hardware and tools, outlines of common objections and concerns relating to usage, numerous practical suggestions and discussion points.
This is an approachable book and discussion starter. However, in my opinion, there are two broad aspects of the overall exposition that impact negatively on the practicality and acceptability of the ideas expounded. These points relate to: (i) a highly questionable assumption in the introduction, and (ii) an underspecified statement of pedagogy throughout.
First, a central productivity-based building block in Brooks-Young's argument relates to the effects of globalisation. I nearly didn't get beyond page one when I read: "Students who live in industrialized nations around the world are increasingly disenchanted with the education programs provided. They view educators who use traditional teaching methods as being out of touch. They rankle at completing the same projects and assignments their parents and even grandparents did when they attended school. They believe that the technology tools that are banned on campus are, in fact, the keys to success in their future." This is an astonishing and disturbing scenario that would be very difficult to substantiate empirically. Indeed, leaving aside the imprecision associated with the term "industrialized nations", I have heard tech-savvy high school students say they don't like having access to ICT in school because it distracts them from high-stakes academic work. Furthermore, they respect their teachers (just like their parents did, I suspect) and no doubt trust their methods and programmes. Who or what is mistaken here? A little later, Brooks-Young proposes: "It may be that what we really need to grapple with is the fact that our current system of education no longer helps all students flourish" (page 8). When did any educational system allow all students to flourish equally?
Second, Brooks-Young works from what she claims is a thinly populated base where there are few good examples (models) illustrating exemplary practice with emerging technologies. As is the case with mobile telephones and MP3 players, for example, all teachers can do is "set expectations" and "seize opportunities" but on what basis? The author's rationale for recruiting students' technologies into classroom work is not a question of proven effectiveness. Rather, it's founded on provision and relevance. She states, "... it is incumbent upon educators to create engaging learning environments that mirror the real world and to ensure that students acquire the skills needed to function in these settings ... So what we need to ask is whether our schools are serving students well by providing up-to-date, relevant tools for learning the skills they need to lead successful lives" (pages 2-3 and also compare with page 121). To my mind, policymakers and administrators often use the "keep-yourself-relevant" argument in the absence of strong theoretical and pedagogical support for their technocratic predilections. Further, what teachers and students really need is a pedagogical undergirding that allows them to make robust, informed choices based on theories of learning. Brooks-Young mentions project-based learning and constructivism in the chapter on Netbooks but does not elaborate. For anyone interested, Cummins, Brown and Sayers in their expansive "Literacy, technology and diversity: Teaching for success in changing times" (Pearson, 2007) do a far better job in showing how meaningful, theory-driven learning can and does occur with technology both inside and outside classrooms.
This is a book with a limited and limiting focus. It concentrates mostly on classroom uses of technology and homegrown matters. Overall, I think it fails to properly engage a serious issue in contemporary learning--educators' resistance to the shift of epistemic authority from formal to informal contexts mediated by access to ICT. This is a deep-seated cultural, social, historical and political dilemma that will truly require a revolution in *all* parts of the world. Brooks-Young's book is an entry point into a conversation that will have to be sustained by other thinking that goes beyond simple, unquestioned 21st-century folklore about what the *real* world is or could be idealistically.
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