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What Lies Beyond?

Meg A. Byte, a pseudonym for technology writer, educator, and educational technology consultant Constance Bleiler, is Education World's technology expert.

Dear Meg A. Byte,

Do you think technology will eventually make the classroom teacher obsolete?
Miss Taken

Dear Miss Taken,

I can assume only that you are an alien chatterbot* hoping to beam dire predictions about human extinction back to your motherboard. I am pleased, therefore, to be able to thwart your evil rays. In my opinion, the answer is "No."

Certainly, in the future, technology will play a larger role in the daily life of classroom teachers. The role it will serve, however, will be a complement to, rather than a replacement for, the teacher.

Computers are tools; their purpose is to make classroom tasks easier. Computers can facilitate attendance tracking, test administration, and other forms of record keeping. They can optimize targeted teaching, allowing students on both ends of the learning spectrum to benefit from a computerized one-on-one dynamic. They can be a wonderful tool for research.

In my opinion, however, computers will never be able to satisfy the intangible emotional element that inquisitive students need. Students want more than answers; they want feeling and context. Teachers provide much more than raw data. Good teachers present information in a way that students can connect to it. Computers will never be able to do that with as much success.

The human element makes teachers valuable to our students -- not the facts, not the data.
Meg

*A chatterbot, according to whatis?com, is "a program that attempts to simulate the conversation or "chatter" of a human being."