The March of the Machines – How Can Shore Navigate the Digital Age?
“For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.”
(1 Timothy 4:4)
Dear Students, Parents and Carers
In Industrial Revolution England in the early 19th century, the Luddites emerged as a destabilising force and an apparent threat to social order. What bound these people together was their hostility to the new machines, the looms in textile manufacturing that were displacing some workers. They organised a number of raids on what we would call small factories to smash these new and threatening machines. The Luddites were named after Ned Ludd, possibly a mythological figure, whose “office”, like a man of the people before him, was said to be Sherwood Forest.
Of course, the Luddites did not prevail. They are an interesting lesson in the difficulty of resisting increasing technology. Should we emulate the Luddites in trying to resist the march of the machines, in our case the increasing ubiquity of computers, whether desktops, laptops, iPads or handheld devices? Some would say yes.
Forty years ago, when I was a Head of Department in a school, my then Principal looked askance at these strange new devices called computers and decided that the school would be content with just one of them. Not long ago, a Sydney Headmaster in another school resisted laptops on the grounds that they were a fad which could be ignored until they disappeared. This seems a little like King Canute, in days of yore, trying to turn back the tide.
Shore has been slow to embrace the technology revolution in schools. My proposition is that we need to engage fully in digital learning in order to equip our students and prepare them for the workforce where full computer literacy will be a condition of engagement and an essential tool of trade. Furthermore, we need our students to be able to access the rich veins of information available and to harness technology as a tool not only for information access but for note-taking, annotation of sources, graphic processing, digital design and software that enhances learning. It is now no longer possible for a student in Years 7 and 9 to take NAPLAN with paper and pen, it is compulsory for all schools in an online format. Similarly, there is already one HSC examination online, and no doubt the other HSC examinations will follow where students will need to be adept at the necessary processes to enter their scripts in this manner. NESA (NSW Education Standards Authority) have not yet given a timeline for a fully online HSC, but the change is inevitable.
A passing glance at the surging world of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) suggests that we need to equip our students to navigate and harness these developments, which will no doubt be a large part of the world of work and of life itself in coming decades. To fail to assist students to be ready would seem to be negligent.
This is not to suggest that technology should be allowed free reign. Technology is a wonderful servant, but an awful master, a tyrant, in fact, if we give it sway. Technology has a huge capacity to distract, to consume time in activities which are inconsequential, and can be an instrument of harassment and give access to sites which are, to say the least, unhelpful. It can be the carrier of “fake news” and makes no distinction between high quality sources and those which are challengeable or of little worth. We don’t, it seems to me, want to adopt the reactionary stance that technology, despite its capacity to do harm, is evil. After all, as Paul wrote to Timothy: “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4). The capacity for harm sits with humans, not the inanimate objects.
My contention is that the School and parents have a joint responsibility to assist students to develop discernment and wisdom. It is easy for young people to assume that anything in print has the status of holy writ. We need to teach the ability to critique sources, detect bias and assign relative worth to a multiplicity of sources.
I am confident most in our community would agree that the Digital Age cannot be ignored. We can hardly batten hatches and completely repel it. If this is the case, it follows that we must control it. Shore’s digital devices, provided this year through Years 7 to 11, have filters which block undesirable websites. The School is able to track student activity on devices such that red alerts appear if students attempt to trespass by accessing what we regard as unsavoury websites. This is so wherever access is attempted, our filters will block access. Wayward students will require discipline or pastoral support, or both. Additionally, we want students off devices during breaks (with the exception of in the Library working on assignments or homework). We want them interacting with actual people at these times rather than with avatars. Similarly, in class, teachers control when devices are accessed and harness them strictly for learning. Sometimes, technology will be in use in class and sometimes not. We have no intention of abandoning the need to write by hand, such that students become highly competent in that domain.
There is an important role here for parents in exerting parental supervision beyond the School. It is my firm belief that parents need to set digital boundaries. The School is looking forward to partnering with parents in providing access to Qustodio Parental Control software for this very purpose. It is not good for young people to spend excessive amounts of time on social media, which tend to major on the superficial, the banal and, sometimes, aspects which could only be said to be vile. One would hope Shore students stay away from the latter tendency. Moreover, there is a real danger of computer addiction. Recent developments in the area of neuroscience indicate that overuse can rewire the young brain to be dependent on chemicals of satisfaction released through activities such as success in gaming.
Research indicates Australian youth features many sleep deprived teenagers who are available online 24/7. FOMO (fear of missing out) seems to drive this need to be accessible. Digital parenting 101 always advises that young people not be allowed to have their device in their bedroom after lights out. An extension of this is that parents need to negotiate sensitively a “looking over their shoulder” awareness of what their children are doing online.
Shore teaches digital citizenship to its students. For a number of years this has been done through explicit instruction with our Library Services team, at times through the hands of experts who address students, and at other times through opportunistic interactions on a daily basis between staff and students. We would all want our young people to emerge into the world of potential employment with a good digital footprint, knowing that many employers in our Information Age will check the online history of those they are considering for employment.
There should be no digital skeletons in the cupboard where young people have inflicted ongoing wounds on their futures. This point needs to be made constantly by the mature and experienced to the immature and young.
They need to be very careful about what they share and with whom, and they need to enact privacy settings.
Machines can be a menace! Properly controlled, they can be a source of rich learning. We need to keep them in their place, firmly under control, so that they are faithful servants, rather than our masters.
Dr J Collier
Headmaster