Why do we ask the effectiveness of inanimate objects of our creation? It is funny that these types of questions are posed at all, and it would be quite an insight if we could narrow down the demographic that continuously challenges better communication.

How effective is a: blackboard, dewy decimal system, pencil & paper, calculator, study groups, educational clubs? Books are information technology; they simply have very large hard drives that hold limited information, they are difficult to search, they can get really heavy, it's difficult to send books to your friends, especially if you want to send them to many friends that live in disparate places. Information Technology is simply a better conduit for all these things and more! It is another tool to find information, to collaborate with your peers, to verify teachings, to engage the knowledge not just memorize it, and even to make learning fun.

Like any tool, we have to understand its potential, understand how it makes certain forms of communication, the path, easier or harder. What doors does it open? Then we can develop new systems and methods within this undiscovered realm.

What new capabilities do we have with IT? IT enhances the capabilities we already have. The way we go about teaching and learning today is a result of a proud history of optimizing the efficient use of our efforts given the tools we have to achieve the goals set forth by our leaders. Like building railroads before pneumatic hammers, or processing cotton before the gin, or manufacturing textiles before the industrial revolution, our classrooms and lectures, study periods, detentions and recess, available topics, number of class choices are all an optimized systematic use of the tools at our disposal, where the goal has been, ideally anyway, the transference and expansion our understanding of the world around us.

So with IT, as is with any effort to make progress, the everlasting question should be: How can we use our tools more effectively to achieve our goals? The question is not how effective is IT, but how effective are our old systems of classrooms, homeroom, textbooks, libraries, study hall, lectures, etc. What are these systems comprised of and can we rearrange them to better communicate, or are there pieces we never knew existed? I believe we are only scratching the surface of Information Technology.

Learn more about this author, Sean Gonzalez.
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