Like Oxygen

One of the speakers at the 1-on-1 Panel held here at Brandon University made a very interesting analogy about technology in the classroom, comparing it to oxygen. He said that it should be "omnipresent, necessary and invisible". I want to hold that oxygen metaphor for a moment and consider it in a little more detail.

Oxygen is essential to life. As we move further and further into the digital age, so is technology. Twenty years ago, the Internet was virtually a novelty for the general population, fifteen years ago, it was just starting to come into widespread use. Today, Internet access and digital technology has rapidly become a necessity rather than a luxury. Fortunately, with the advent of tablets, smartphones and highly affordable laptop systems, it has also become far more accessible than it ever was before. While still a daunting prospect, it is possible for schools to move towards a 1-on-1 model for technology.

Oxygen and technology are necessary, then.

What about omnipresence? Oxygen is all around us, and so is technology. Even in school divisions that could never be accused of being particularly progressive, technology is a major part of the academic life of a school as well as the social lives of all the people who live within it. One in four children in Grade Four have a smartphone and the numbers increase drastically as one goes through the grade levels. By the time kids are in Grades Seven or Eight, that number is likely a majority and by high school, very few children indeed do not have access to this technology. Smartboards exist in just about every classroom and devices are easily accessible even in schools that do not have a 1-on-1 model.

Oxygen and technology are omnipresent.

Invisibility. Oxygen makes up about twenty percent of air, is essential to life and yet, we cannot see it. While I wouldn't say that technology has truly become invisible yet (we'll need to wait another generation or so, I think, for the possibility of neural implants), it has become far subtler than it used to be. Computers used to fill enormous rooms, cost millions of dollars- and have less processing power than even the tiniest smartphone today. A typical consumer system today contains more processing power than NASA had on hand to take men to the moon in 1969. Technology has become lighter and smaller than the books that it would replace, not the thousands of books of a school library, but a single book. A smartphone is lighter than virtually any book.

Technology is rapidly becoming invisible, like oxygen is.

There's something else about oxygen, though, that I think can extend the metaphor a little bit. What does a fire need to survive and grow? Oxygen.

In today's world, what has more potential than anything else to transform pedagogy and light the fires of student learning? Technology.