April 2, 2001

Letter to the Lakeside Board of Trustees and Bernie Noe

First, I am opposed to laptops in the classroom. My position does not depend on cost. If the laptops were free, I would still be opposed to the proposal in front of us.

Second, I am a technology consultant by profession and have a strong feel for educational successes and foibles with respect to technology. In this forum, I speak as a parent. But, were I paid to render an opinion, it would be the same.

I studied at MIT for five years and was awarded two undergraduate degrees, one in Architecture and one in Electrical Engineering. My Architecture studio was right down the hall from the original Media Lab. The late 70's were a time when the Media Lab was capturing urban walking experiences within an interactive video system. I have continued to follow the exploits of the Media Lab and MIT research in general. Today, I have the privilege of helping the concept development team at The University of Colorado develop a new multi-discipline technology research and study center. This center will bring together people from diverse disciplines including the performing arts, the social sciences, and engineering for a series of special technology centric projects. We call it the ATLAS project.

On February 13, 1997, I was invited to speak at Lakeside about planning for technology. I spoke about planning for construction (specifically at the Middle School) to accommodate technology. I also spoke about "appropriate applications" for technology. My second topic is germane to the issue at hand.

In order to make informed decisions about technology we must all make an effort to distinguish technology from function, to differentiate efficiency and effectiveness, and to critically evaluate the state of the art in information technology today.

I want to address several distinct issues.

  1. There is a strong reason why laptop technology does not work in the classroom -- it is not a functional fit for the primary function of high school education. Laptops in the classroom environment will lower the quality of discussion and reduce the effectiveness of the seminar format at Lakeside. I will try to show why this is.
  2. There are several applications that technology supports very well. These could be added to the Lakeside experience. None of these applications benefit from laptops. I'll offer specific suggestions.
  3. Business does not need technology-ready people -- we have plenty of them. Business desperately needs communicators, leaders, critical thinkers, systems thinkers and environmentalists. I will comment from the perspective of my own profession.
  4. Universal access to technology -- a separate issue from use in the classroom -- might be an issue at Lakeside. If some students still lack access to technology, then there are better alternatives than laptops. I'll offer three alternative solutions related to this issue.

My executive summary is easy. There are no convincing reasons for implementing the laptop program as suggested; but, there are several strong reasons not to, and there are more appropriate solutions for each technology application that might improve the experience at Lakeside.

With that:

Item 1. Technology advancement is firmly rooted in capitalism. The conceptually "easy" product, the one that can be delivered quickly, is well rewarded. The conceptually "hard" problems have consistently eluded attempts to make products. Thus, we get our current state of the art. Personal Computers (PC's) are very efficient computational devices. They are great word processors. They are becoming better graphics tools. If you throw in an Internet connection they are great portal -- great means for communicating things we can represent in words and pictures -- once we learn to express ourselves in words and pictures.

They do not think. They do not listen. They do not organize. They do not synthesize.

In their immediacy, they lead us away from a "discipline of the mind." But, this is the stuff of Lakeside. It is the class interaction, the discussion, the debate, the choosing of sides, the critical analysis of information. This is the core. It is why I chose Lakeside for my children.

Given the state of the art today, PC's can be helpful to students while preparing for class. But, they are not effective in assisting the classroom discussion experience. If students learn to ignore their laptops in the classroom, then the seminar experience might be maintained. If students use their laptops in the classroom, then the seminar experience will be impaired.

Give the technology more time. I have a set of three books c. 1969 -- I believe the title is Encyclopaedia of Artificial Intelligence. They claimed voice recognition was only five years off. We presently have several reasonable voice recognition systems. As long as your vocabulary is not intrusive, as long as you do not have a cold, and as long as your Uncle does not play with the settings, these systems will recognize enough words to assist with business documents. It has been 32 years and we are not quite there. I'd give PC's another 64 years or so before they can emulate common sense; before they become "helpful" in the way I mean when I consider the qualities of an effective educational environment.

I concede that PC's, especially with the Internet, can be effective communications tools for people who are separated. Distance education -- especially in higher education and graduate studies -- is built on PC's, on the Internet, and on a concept called "Information Space." I'll come back to this concept.

But, in the context of Lakeside, PC's, or laptops, used as communication tools is a technology solution looking for a problem. There is no problem to solve. There is no separation between the protagonists that we care about. The cost of travel on campus is nearly zero. The all-important face-to-face meeting is immediately at hand.

Thus, in the context of the most important aspect of a Lakeside Upper School education we have a choice between learning to ignore the laptops or detracting from the classroom discussion experience.

Item 2. Technology in education is not all bad. Information technology can be effective:

The hardware sets best suited to these applications remain in the realm of computer labs, science room machines, and accessible library machines. One new element may be suggested -- easy to use digital display systems in several essential classrooms.

Item 3. I speak to only one example, but the example is within my direct experience. When I hire individuals who can think and communicate, it takes us about 30 hours to teach them every one of our essential technology applications except, perhaps, AutoCAD. AutoCAD may require an additional 200 to 400 hours of training and experience. The individuals who can think become project managers, professionals, and industry leaders within a few years. When I hire technology-proficient designers (say, an individual who knows how to code a few tricks within the Microsoft Word application), it seems to take years to train them to communicate, longer to teach them to process knowledge concerning the building industry, and even longer to get them to teach others. Sometimes our technology-focused hires never reach a proficient professional level.

That is why I suggest we do not want to teach technology proficiency, i.e., how to use technology tools. There are more important things to teach.

We can bring this down to a more personal level, but only by allowing ourselves to make a value statement. There are many people who earn their living by understanding how to use technology tools. Data entry personal, lab technicians, transaction specialists, and the customer service representative in an automotive repair shop all use technology as an efficiency tool. I may guess that none of the parents in the Lakeside community are grooming their children for any of these positions.

Item 4. I assume that a few Lakeside students do not have access to PC's. Perhaps this is not the case, but let me solve this problem anyway. For a few students PC's are not universally available during and after the school day. Let us plan for the future when a greater number of lesson plans could exist on the Internet -- when research on the Internet is more effective than research in the Library. (I give us ten to twenty years to significantly improve educational research for K-12 on the Web.) So we may want greater computer access, especially for students without Internet access at home. This maps into a greater number of network-connected terminals on campus.

So make it fun. So make it variable. So make it collaborative. Implement three types of spaces and insure that staff is funded to watch all three. First, an expanded library access. Second, an Internet Caf (yes with food and plastic keyboard covers). Third, an off-hours, remote facility like a late night Tully's or a lab at the University of Washington with access to the Lakeside network. Keep in mind; the architectural expression of these spaces is as important to their success as the specifications of the PC.

Additional Discussion. Let me return to the concept of "Information Space." Several experiments at the university level, and one CD that captures a virtual tour of the Boston Library, have tied the notion of virtual travel with a series of intellectual experiences. The resulting concept is an organizational method for traveling about the Web. The CD version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica provides a truncated example of this concept with its use of Web links to point to further reference material.

"Information Space" is a tour through a selection of knowledge, ideas, and desired reference material that is usually assembled by an educator who would lead her students through a collection of thoughts. A particular "Information Space" is not effective unless it is a well-guided tour. This concept is used in place of a textbook in several educational contexts where current information is useful, political science, for example. It is usually integrated with class discussion and with class work that ties the information together, just like working from a good textbook.

Developing an "Information Space" is time intensive. The Encyclopaedia Britannica is good because it holds the knowledge of many fine minds. The CD version remains good because of this collected knowledge and because its Web links are (reportedly) constantly checked for veracity. The quality of "Information Space" has the same dependencies.

I talk about "Information Space" for two reasons. First, it is an interesting concept (and it demonstrates my attention to technology in education). Second, it gives us an example of the challenges of building and maintaining effective technology tools at the high school level. Only a very rare K-12 class would receive this allocation of resources.

Summary. There are several useful information technology investments that I might suggest at Lakeside. These include:

None of these useful applications depend on laptops. Also, laptops may turn students away from the discipline of mind we so dearly need. Thus, I conclude, we should not procure laptops for our students, and we should not allow laptop use during seminar and class discussions.

Considering what I want Lakeside to be, I suggest we do an experiment.

I suggest we use technology selectively, where appropriate, and resist with a fierce will the eventuality of becoming technologists. Instead, strive to nurture leaders who will also resist with a fierce will the implementation of technology for its own sake.

Respectfully submitted,

Douglas A. Bors