On writing as a (s)low-tech Educational Technology

• In Event: Challenging the perception of AI and edTech

Proposal

In the vast majority of conversations about technology, the term is – often implicitly – understood as the latest, the cutting-edge, and the most advanced of technology. This appears to also be the case in conversations about EdTech (Education Technology), especially ever since the beginning of COVID-19 and the mass-conversion of almost all learning to online. On the other end of the spectrum, we might look at (s)low-tech as a fusion term based on the concepts of slow tech (a term coined in the context of computer ethics and describes the notion of more proactively designing technologies with the aim to make them more sustainable in a sense of the criteria good, clean, and fair, and to shift tech environments from a focus on efficiency and performance to a focus on reflection and mental rest) and low tech (a term previously used in educational contexts that poses the argument against the implied notion of the latest high tech’s superiority over all previous tech, any technology is just another technology with its unique advantages and disadvantages, meaning that low tech can well be superior to its opposite of high tech, depending on the specific use case). Tthis means that the challenge lies in recognizing in which situation a particular technology represents the right tool for the job at hand.
While Zoom and other conference-call type classrooms, as well as many other EdTech applications have certainly saved many from severe interruptions and delays in their education, my most profound tech-based learning experience involved a rather (s)low-tech solution which, instead of live video streaming of conversations, re-focused us all on one of the most basic technologies we work with in education: Writing.
Participating in courses which were entirely conducted asynchronously, without any live components, and which instead asked students and teachers to put all their thinking, presentations, discussion, peer comments, etc. into writing, resulted in one of the most profound learning experiences I had ever participated in. Writing as a technology both enables and forces us to put much more thought and care into our contributions to educational activities which otherwise would often just be rather brief and ad-hoc responses and comments. By having to put these into writing instead (and not just into any writing, but into writing that shows our sincere and deep engagement with the activity, content, and argument) such learning spaces create a much deeper engagement with each other’s thoughts and – in an odd way – with each other, creating an almost strange sense of intimacy in distance among learners and teachers.
If we consider thinking (and reflecting) as important processes within the pursuit of learning, writing as a technology supports us in that it makes us think a little harder: By putting our thoughts into writing, we undergo a reflection and learning process ourselves, and we may achieve extra clarity on our own argument as a result. Writing also increases access to learning, as we can interact with written words at our own pace and schedule, increasing the chance of wider participation in a conversation, be it active (through a response) or silent (someone just benefitting from being able to read along).
Writing as a technology gives us space by giving us time: As most writing is not an instantaneous response, writing gives us the luxury of time to think more deeply before responding. If what we are responding to is also presented in writing, then it was also likely conceived using that little extra bit of time for that little extra thought and preparation. Also relevant to spaces, writing changes the ethics of our communication: It makes us more aware and mindful of our audiences and allows us to consider them much better than we ever could in an ad hoc spoken response.
Writing as a technology supports us in the creation of knowledge and its accessibility, in that putting something in writing makes it outlast the corresponding spoken words. This added permanence facilitates exchanges over distances and across time zones, and it also facilitates exchanges across cultural and even language barriers, as a deeper and longer interaction with our written thoughts can allow members to read, process, (partially) understand, return again, reread, and understand better over time. The same holds true for the responses we craft, and by giving our thoughts permanence, writing also increases our accountability, making us care more about what and how we say it and how what we say might be understood in the absence of our tone of voice, body language, and immediate feedback.
Overall, writing can be a disruptive education technology and should be afforded this prominence within conceptualizations of EdTech: Writing slows us down, and in doing this, goes against the ever-increasing speed that is part of the knowledge economy surrounding us. As such, it is maybe an uncomfortable technology, as we are always pressured for time. However, while many features of sophisticated technology help us to minimize or avoid writing (think of automatic speech recognition, or the use of emoticons to replace entire phrases), writing – as simple a technology as it is – can disrupt how we go about learning and teaching, and might well be a neglected but powerful Tech aspect of EdTech, that may help us balance our focus between Tech and Ed.
This discussion, further contextualized by a small scale qualitative exploration of student experiences in distance learning courses following an approach which focuses heavily on writing as its main technology, seeks to contribute to a field where the potential and promise of the latest and most sophisticated technologies tends to get all the attention. The paper hopes to present writing as a (s)low-tech educational technology as equally worthy of our attention.

Author

• Stefan Reindl, UOC - Open University of Catalonia