Reflective, Critical Thinking andTechnology

Are you ready for a thinking with technology reality check?
In an Education Digest article, Tarlow and Spangler (2001) wondered whether or not our "high-tech kids" would be able to think critically and reflectively in the future. They acknowledged that children (and adults for that matter) are able to think multidimensionally and do have multiple intelligences. They even pointed to the issue of people gasping because children can play computer games and build Web sites but cannot read and comprehend written text efficiently.Tarlow and Spangler asked that we respect and learn from these children while making sure that children get the "benefits of our oral and literate traditions." It's time for a reality check! Hello, Tarlow and Spangler, are you out there? You have failed to make the case for the benefits of oral and literate traditions beyond merely listing them as involving things such as hands-on activities, pretending, and physical activities. You also spoke of maintaining the "reflective advantages of present, nontechnological literacy." You gave no support for if and how our methods for developing literacy were indeed effective. Instead, you turned to questioning technology's role in literacy development and thinking. What's nontechnological literacy anyway? Did you forget that some type of technology has always played a role in literacy and thinking?

What's the real deal?
To me, the issue isn't for us to have newer technologies drive where our children "end up" and then wonder what happened. As educational professionals, we should indeed look at costs and benefits of any instructional method or tool. There's a danger in letting the novelty of certain technologies overwhelm us and overshadow the real deal. The real deal is that we need to foster critical thinking and information literacy skills for life-long independent learning with the most effective technologies available. The real deal is that we've always used some form of technology to teach literacy and foster thinking skills. We can help children learn with technology (Jonassen, Carr, & Hsiu-Ping, 1998). The real deal is that the technologies of today and tomorrow are merely tools that have the potential to help us communicate more effectively and efficiently with a greater number of input sources and with a greater variety of people.

Easier and better for whom and how?
Some of the things that Tarlow and Spangler criticized about technology's potential threat to deeper thinking could be resolved by educators and instructional designers creating better interactive, constructivist computerized learning environments and instruction. There isn't any cogent reason why, designers can't offer better software that provides children opportunities to reflect, pretend, draw, read or sing. Tarlow and Spangler should have also considered that their voice to text arguments are actually meeting deficiency needs of some visually impaired children. This technology might be a key motivator in these children's eagerness to develop better literacy and thinking skills in order to communicate with others. Why have these students struggle when easier is indeed better?

References
Jonassen, D. H., Carr, C., & Yueh, H.-P. (1998). Computers as mindtools for engaging learners in critical thinking. TechTrends, 43(2), 24-32.

Spangler K. L. & Tarolw M. C. (2001). Now more than ever: Will high-tech kids still think deeply? The Education Digest, 67(3), 23-27.