Invisible Technologies

“Invisible Technologies”

I was challenged by many things in these chapters. I was very intrigued by the “invisible technologies”. I had not thought about the fact that what language a message is given in, affects how it is viewed or its meaning is interpreted, beyond reading different translations of the Bible.

More spcifically, the ideas shared about the way we ask questions (the language we use), was convicting to me about how I assess my students. As a student, I did not like multple choice questions. I would occasionally add an explanation behind the letter I had chosen, because I wanted the teacher to know more about why I had chosen that answer. I do see appropriate uses for multiple choice, true/false, and matching forms of assessment, but these are not always well-crafted by educators or curriculum writers (myself included).  I often lean more toward open-ended questions, I think because I want to know for sure what my students have learned, not that they are good guessers. One example: I use matching/fill-in-the-blank for assessing vocabulary knowledge. I think is it valuable to use deducing skills and context clues to make the best guess for the meaning of a word, but I also have them use it in a sentence to check that they can do more than identify, but can also use it correctly.

The other idea I wanted to reflect on was the “invisible technology” of statistics. The quote most interesting to me was about IQ tests...“Of what earthly use is it to declare that one group of people is smarter than another?” Putting a numerical value on something does not make it comprehensive and accurate. Along with this, the author writes about the “untold harm” done to our society and education by allowing these statistics to hold any value.

He also goes on to say how statistics can be good when used to create change. I agree with him, that there is a lot of useless information out there in statistical form, that seems to hold value, simply because it is a stat. If the statistic is reliable/accurate/unbiased and is intended to be used for making a positive change in our world, it should hold value, but how to we sift these pieces of information out of the mass of useless data thrown at us along with it? This is a skill in discernment that we definitely need to teach our students! The challenge is how to do this effectively.   

I am reminded of the presidential election this past year. I was called several times a day for my opinion on candidates and my beliefs. I also viewed so many commercials skewed by biased stats. I remember thinking that I just wanted someone to give me the “true” facts! Statistics CAN and ARE being used for good, as we inspire each other to make a difference bringing change to injustices and solving problems in our world, but there is an awful lot of unreliable/inaccurate/ biased information clouding our view of what is true and accurate.