Even Luddites Chat on the Internet

QUEST, 1997,49,270-279
O 1997 American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education
Minutes of the Commodore Club:
Even Luddites Chat on the Internet
Lawrence F. Locke
These remarks, delivered at the first general session, were designed both as a
response to the keynote address and as a framework within which the fellows
of the Academy might approach the diverse presentations concerning technology that were to follow. Four cautions are identified with regard to the adoption of new technologies: (a) technological determinism, (b) misuses of machines, (c) underestimation of real costs. and (d) the sometimes unwelcome
baggage of technology. A list of rules is provided as guidance for living wisely
with technology. Use of the rules is illustrated by reference to the Commodore
64 computer.
I have been asked by the Program Committee to make some remarks that
might serve as a bridge between the keynote address and the two days of papers
and demonstrations that are to follow. Uncharacteristic as it may seem, I propose
to undertake precisely that. There are salient points in Dean Haggerty's address
that, if you can understand them correctly, and remember them at the right moments, will help you contemplate what is to come with maximum profit, a critical
ear-and some good mental hygiene.
My task has been made easier by the fact that Dean Haggerty and I not only
are singing from the same conceptual hymnal, we have been, for the most part,
reading from the same pages. At the risk of making this feel too much like a graduate seminar, I have taken the liberty of preparing a reference list containing some
of the most useful and provocative pages we have consulted'. To encourage subsequent use, brief annotations have been included. As that document has another
small role to play in this presentation, I will ask you to keep it close at hand.
Before starting to knock together some scaffolding on which we can stand to
survey technology, it will be wise to clear away some of the underbrush. First, I
come here to praise technology, not to bury it. To point out that technology has a
mixed record is no more than taking public notice of the obvious. Given what
comes into our homes on television and the Internet (dazzling technologies that
lead one to contemplate Faustian bargains), most of you will have concluded that
omnivorous vulgarity is the risky potential embedded in many technical inventions. Nothing in those observations, however, makes any of us a technophobe.
Lawrence E Locke is Emeritus Professor of Physical Education with the Department
of Professional Preparation at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Totman Building,
Amherst, MA 01003.
COMMODORE CLUB
27 1
Certainly it serves no purpose to play the modern-day Nedd Ludd, exhorting
you to shoot your computers and return to Eberhard Faber Number 2s. In fact, some
browsing among the social critiques of technology included on the reference list will
leave you with the distinct impression that they were written in Word Perfect. It is a
simple fact that some technologies bring gifts too substantial to ignore.
For me, word processing is the finest human invention since, if not sex, at
least baseball. The fact that I have used it to give an elegant patina to some really
dumb ideas is the fault of neither hardware nor program. There is no conflict between appreciating the facile magic of word processing and the suggestion that we
might well be more cautious about uncritically adopting technologies into our classrooms, libraries, offices, homes, and personal lives. As I am going to suggest in
this brief homily, that is not necessarily a concern born of hostile ideology. It may
represent simple reflection on painful past experience.
A second clump of underbrush that requires tidying up consists of confusion
about answering the question, "What are we talking about here?" Proposals, announcements, and now your program all say the topic is "Technology in Kinesiology and Physical Education." So far as I am aware, nobody specified the subdomain
of information technology as the focus for this conference. Nevertheless, from
session titles in the program, draft versions of papers I have seen, and from Dean
Haggerty's address, it is clear that all of the participants have, like geese flying in
a "V" formation, turned onto the information technology course without any visible signal from a leader-and done so without a backward look.
So be it. We will talk here, and subsequently in our annual issue of Quest,
about computers and the Internet. In doing so, however, I honestly believe we have
missed a golden opportunity to think about (and celebrate) the impact of technology
in its more inclusive definition-those artifacts that are engineered to achieve human purposes-on the scholarship and professional work of physical education.
If I look back on my own career and ask, "How has changing technology
made a direct and practical difference in my professional life?" it is easy to make
a list, even one that has a rough ordering of importance. The interesting thing,
however, is that although information technologies are noted, they are not ranked
at the top. As each was introduced over the past 45 years, these are the 10technical
innovations that made the most substantial difference in my day-to-day work as a
physical educator:
Xerox machines,
air conditioning,
modem running shoes,
teaching methods for active learning,
systematic observation instruments,
the qualitative research paradigm,
word processing,
ANOVA and MANOVA,
E-mail, and
ERIC (the retrieval system).
All of which, by the way, are technologies, even though only some are based on
hardware, because a technology can as properly be a conceptual system as a
semiconductor.
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COMMODORE CLUB
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People engage in that sort of behavior whenever they confuse promises with
accomplishments. Once it is assumed that what is claimed is actually going to
happen, nobody wants to be among the have-nots who are left behind. Which is
why technological determinism also is called "The Great Train Fallacy."
A brief story to illustrate. A decade ago, some Massachusetts business persons and state politicos (none of whom knew anything about education, aside from
having once attended school) were meeting weekly at a popular Boston watering
hole. There they discovered a community of common interest-"fixing" the public schools. That casual cabal created a plan for school reform that was about as
bad as anyone could concoct. It was dangerously misinformed, potentially destructive in its impact, and contrary to both common sense and research evidence.
The plan got, of course, a lot of immediate and favorable press coverage, as
well as endorsements from a number of people facing election. Within a year, the
Chair of the state legislature's Education Committee came to the School of Education at my university, where the faculty was assembled to hear his explanation of
that grand scheme for reform. A visible wave of disbelief swept the audience, but
our Dean got us quickly into a caucus and said, "Look people, this train is leaving
the station and it is in our interest to be on board!" If it was going to happen, then
he counted it better to be leaders than to be the only players left behind.
To my eternal shame, our faculty did not stand up and say, "Just wait a damn
minute!" We got on board that train (as did every other teacher education faculty
in the state), and did so not because it was a sound plan, but because we did not
want to be left out of something that was going to happen.
That is the terrible mischief of determinism at work, and a generation of
teachers and children now are paying the price. What was supposed to happen,
didn't. The central structural flaw became apparent (the myth of top-down reform), essential funds were not provided, parts of the plan were not implemented
and, exactly as is true with many high-tech gadgets, state officials soon found it
was too late to bail out because too much already had been invested.
As Dean Haggerty pointed out, the future for adoption and use of technology can't be known with certainty in advance. It always is wise to maintain a
degree of healthy skepticism. The fear that anyone not on board will become the
equivalent of a bumpkin without a modem, disables our capacity to critically appraise assertions and promises. As with school reform, you should remember that
a technological train may never leave the station and, even if it does, it may go
somewhere you would really not want to be.
Misuses of Machines
It also is true that bad things happen to good technologies even after they are
adopted and function as promised. The present hysteria about computers in the
schools provides an instructive example. As the late Ernest Boyer observed, purchase before planning invites waste and confusion. In the case of computers, we
have plenty of that. Schools are choking on machines the faculty don't know how
to use and the districts can't maintain.
A city near my home recently cut the teacher work force as an economy
measure. Class size in science courses promptly rose, and anyone who reads educational research can predict with confidence that achievement will fall. The high
school now has had to cap enrollment in science (largely because of liability risks
associated with insufficient supervision for laboratory sections). The financial savings generated by all of this ($600,000) were invested in new fiber optic lines that
over the summer went into every secondary classroom. To date, the only use has
been a video-feed showing the principal reading the daily announcements before
first period. The superintendent,however, has high-tech bragging rights at the next
meeting of area administrators.
Underestimation of Real Costs
The only major longitudinal study of computer use in the classroom that
employs multivariate measures (the Apple-sponsored ACOT project) shows that
some of the initial fears about computer use in the schools are groundless. Given
years of training, solid administrative support, and plenty of money for software,
maintenance, and upgrading, curricula can be designed around computer use, and
teachers can use technology in impressive ways. On the other hand, evaluation
data from most of the ubiquitous and far less ambitious projects show that the
learning achievements of students who use computers typically are no worse than
those of students in traditional classrooms. Not a persuasive endorsement for a
special bond issue to purchase school computers--but if there is one in the town
where you live, it is likely to pass.
The public is convinced that they should get their schools on board-lest the
train leave their children behind at the station. In many cases, however, they will
not have the price of a ticket. Funds for computer purchase (often in the form of
relatively small soft money grants) make no provision for teacher training, hardware maintenance, software purchase, system management, upgrading, replacement or, of course, evaluation. All of those are expensive additions when compared to the Guttenberg technology that now serves schools.
We are in an era when teacher testing, student uniforms, and higher academic standards are thought to be appropriate means for school reform, not because we know that they produce more learning, but because we know they are
cheap. Most people, politicians, and school administrators included, have a naively optimistic notion of the costs involved in making effective educational use of
information technology. Computers in schools are going to choke on their press
releases, while they starve on their maintenance and management budgets-long
before they get an honest chance to show what they might accomplish.
The Sometimes Unwelcome Baggage of Technology
A second warning you might wish to take forward from the keynote lies in
Dean Haggerty's repeated suggestion that we must think carefully about the changes
that the use of new machines have brought, and will bring. It was clear that his
concerns went not only to what is done for us, but also to how those services will
change us-who we are, and how we understand the world.
When you buy the technology in a new ballpoint pen, the shift in your world
is so small as to be undetectable. With a new car, perhaps you could notice some
alteration in old habits, or a shift in your feelings about driving. In the case of
purchasing a microwave, there often is considerable reshaping of life patterns,
how time is used, and the place assumed by mealtime in the daily round. But what
about a computer, an information machine? If technologies are not neutral and
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passive entities, should we not think as carefully about what the computer will do
to us, as we consider what it will dofor us?
Another story to illustrate. In the early '60s my former wife and I were in our
generative phase, building a family and raising them up. We had a cabin in a small,
remote, mountain village in Montana. No phone, no appliances, water piped in
from a spring, and 17 miles over rugged, unpaved roads to the nearest store. That
meant no diaper service, and those days were long before Pampers. So I did the
nappies by hand. I found a big tin washtub and, along with soap, disinfectant, and
an oversized plumber's helper, the whole outfit was set out in the back yard where
I did ka-chunk, ka-chunk for a couple of hours every few days.
The result was clean diapers, no bottom-rashes, lots of entertainment for the
neighbors (who, much amused, often wandered by to chat), and some quality time
with the kids romping around and my spouse reading on the back steps.
The first hatch of children were potty-trained when an assorted batch of
adoptees came along, and we added an electric water heater. Without much thinking about it, we also bought a washing machine and invited a new technology into
our lives.
What that device taught me was a lesson you will find writ large in many of
the books on the reference list. Technology never is simply additive. By entering
your world, it alters your world. When America got television in the '50s, the end
result was not an America plus television. The old America disappeared-forever.
What we live in now is a new world; an America with a television in every home.
Likewise, the Lockes discovered, painfully, that you don't just add a washing machine.
They are labor-saving devices, but how do you spend the time you save? For
a New England farm boy, only one option was conceivable-you use it to do some
other kind of work. So, on two or three mornings each week I disappeared into the
garage down by the lakeshore, where I wrote journal articles, book chapters, and
assorted stuff, charitably called scholarship. We did not get summer life at the
cabin plus a washing machine. We got a different life. Things changed, including
my relationship with my wife (who objected quietly to my long absences), the
amount of time spent with my kids, and the priorities to which I responded. All of
those changed in subtle, but irreversible ways.
You might ask me, "Were the changes for better or for worse?" No doubt I
have made that calculation differently at different times in my life. Right now,
however, what I can say is that if you were to offer a swap of any 10 publications
from my resume in exchange for 10 mornings in the back yard doing diapers-you
would have a deal. Life with a washing machine looked better in anticipation than
it turned out to be.
You might be tempted to say that my story really has nothing to do with the
technology of washing machines. You could assert that it has to do with male
stupidity, specificially with mine! Oh yes, let us not confuse sentimentality with
social science. But that interpretation of the story misses an important point. Any
new technology adopted into your life will open some doors and close othersand inevitably you must respond, whether wisely or not. Technology brings freight
and it never is just added on.
Not all of the changes produced by technology have the Faustian consequences of my washing machine. Many new implements work to enrich rather
than diminish our lives. That not all do so, however, should give you pause, and
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LOCKE
reason to apply cautious consideration to any new technology-especially one
bearing gifts. Somewhere down the line, the bill will come due, and change in
your world is the only currency by which payment can be made.
Notes From the Commodore Club
To close, I would like you to look at the reading list again. Notice, please,
that the words are spelled correctly. That indicates one of three things: (a) I didn't
type it, (b) I spent hours with a dictionary, or (c) I used a good spell-checker. In
fact, I produced the list in 45 minutes, without a dictionary, by using a word processor and exceptionally efficient software for disciplining my often capricious
orthography. Notice too that the print is sharp. To the untrained eye it looks like
laser-generated type. In fact, it was a clunky, old, Star 24-pin black-and-white
ribbon printer, but a highly flexible program driver gave me control over multiple
fonts, print size, superscripts, underscoring, and bold strike. In sum, the document
was created by good technology that was fast, user-friendly, and powerful.
This is the computer that did the job--a Commodore 64, purchased 10 years
ago2.It represents a technology that complies with some rules of thumb called
"Larry Locke's Little Laws for Living With Technology." Perhaps they will be of
some help in your deliberations at this conference3.
Rule # I . Any technology you keep around ought to do something really well. (For
reading lists, at least, the Commodore passes the test.)
Rule #2. If you are thinking of adding a technology to your life, it ought to do
something demonstrably better than whatever you already are using. (My old IBM
Selectric couldn't do anything except type, and the Commodore does even that a
whole lot better-plus many other tasks as well.)
Rule #3. A new technology should do something no more expensively (cheaper, if
possible), and at least as reliably, as what you already have. (Bells and whistles
aside, this refurbished Commodore computer can be purchased today for less than
$100 from Creative Micro Designs in East Longmeadow, MA. My Selectric cost
nearly 10 times that and it's service contract nearly bankrupted the department.
The Commodore just chugs along-10 years without a failure of any sort.)
Rule # 4 . A new technology should be no bigger in scale and no more vulnerable to
damage than whatever it replaces. (The footprint of this unit is smaller than any
office computer ever made, and I often tote it around in my gym bag. Commodore
made what is called "robust" technology.)
Rule # 5. If you own it, and use it, you ought to be able to understand, at least
generally, how it works. (I admit that I don't comprehend any of the thousands of
lines of ROM in it, anymore than I really understand exactly how my microwave
heats stuff. It is not rocket science, however, to figure out which gizmo is which
inside a Commodore, and from that it was not far to learning where things go when
I hit the enter key. Understanding of that modest magnitude not only provides a
sense of empowerment, but it can be useful.)
Rule # 6. A person of ordinary intelligence should be able to do routine maintenance on a technology, with no more than the tools around any home. (A Phillips
screwdriver has allowed me to replace various mechanical components in my computer, and a $2.80 chip-puller from Radio Shack deals with most upgrades.
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277
Commodore used a variety of plug-in chips on the mother board, so some things
truly can be done by a technically challenged owner. Try that on your Mac and all
you will do is void the warranty!)
Like my various Volkswagens, the Commodore 64 is a machine you can live
with-and learn to love. "But," you ask, "is it truly a computer?" Well, I don't
really know and frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn! My new hard drive has 2
gigabytes of memory and if I write from now until I die it will never be full. With
a $12 modem, it runs the Internet nicely, scrolling text faster than I can read. It
does spread sheets in horizontal. The Print Shop graphics are the same you all use,
and it handles such esoterica as light pens without difficulty. Fast data base programs are available (though without true Boolean search), it has voice synthesis
capacity, and the Commodore sound chip remains the standard for the industry. If
it is not a true computer, then it sure is a tough and handy little something.
"All very nice," you say, "but what exactly is your point?" Am I encouraging all of you to buy a Commodore? Not at all. It probably would not do something
better than what you already own (Rule # 2). I am not shilling for the millions of
64s now turning up in tag sales around the world, and I am not hustling for my
friends at Creative Micro Designs. My point is simple, and no more than this. I
own this piece of technology-it does not own me.
My guess is that for most people that's a real good relationship to have with
any machine you own. This is not a moral issue. Owning a Commodore 64 does
not make me a better person. Certainly, you should spend your money and time in
any way you think best. This is, however, a practical issue if you believe, as I do,
that people ought to be in control of things, and not things in control of people.
To join the Commodore club, you don't actually have to buy one. You just
have to really own whatever you have, whether it is a computer or a bun warmer.
If it is good technology, it will conform to what you need and how you do things.
Don't let anyone sell you a technology that demands the opposite. Being owned by
a machine is not good for the soul.
Selected References
Callister, T.A., & Dunne, E (1992). The computer as doorstop: Technology as
disempowerment. Phi Delta Kappan, 74, 324-326.
(Rare voice of dissent from the education establishment.)
Cuban, L. (1986). Teachers and machines: The classroom use of technology since 1920.
New York: Teachers College Press.
(Now a decade old, but with a master historian at work, it makes a fascinating
story-with ample implications for today.)
Dasgupta, S. (1996). Technology and creativity. New York: Oxford University Press.
(Elegant account of how all technologies are created, and why they are not simply
applications of basic science. This is at once foundation reading- in the field of
technology and a delightful book for the night stand.)
Dwyer, D. (1994). Apple classrooms of tomorrow: What we've learned. Educational
Leadership, 51(7), 4-10.
(Brief description of a longitudinal, multivariate study of computers in the school.
Not a research report, but includes several illustrative case studies.)
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Educational Leadership. (1994). Realizing the promise of technology [Thematic issue]. 51(7).
(Collection of descriptive articles about the use of technology in schools. Useful
overview, but no hard data reported.)
Fisher, C., Dwyer, D.C., &Yocam, I(. (Eds.) (1996). Education and technology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
(Extensive collection commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Apple Classrooms
of Tomorrow (ACOT) study. Examines learning, pedagogy, curriculum, and teacher
training.)
Henderson, B. (Ed.) (1996). Minutes of the Lead Pencil Club: Pulling the plug on the electronic revolution. Wainscott, N Y Pushcart Press.
(An uneven collection of voices from the neo-Luddites. In case you wondered, the
club actually exists!)
Mehlinger, H.D. (1996). School reform in the information age. Phi Delta Kappan, 77,
400-407.
(The irresistible force, technology, meets the immovable object, public schools. A
thoughtful examination of what may happen.)
Noam, E.M. (1995). Electronics and the dim future of the university. Science, 270,247-249.
(The virtual university meets the physical university. Speculation about the future
for professors, departments, programs, and laboratories. Provocative and sobering.)
Norman, D.A. (1993). Things that make us smart. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
(The maven of user-friendly technology looks closely at computers. Thoughtful, articulate, authoritative, and fun.)
Pepi, D., & Scheurman, G. (1996). The emperor's new computer: A critical look at our
appetite for computer technology. Journal of Teacher Education, 47,229-236.
(Raises tough questions about computers in schools, including concerns about compatibility with developmentally appropriate learning environments.)
Postman, N. (1993). Technopoly: The surrender o f culture to technology. New York: Vintage Books.
Loving critic of American culture and long a friend of public education, the author
considers the deeper meanings of technology in our lives. Careful analysis and wonderful prose.)
Scientzj?~American. (1995). Key technologies for the 21st century [Special 150th anniversary issue]. 273(3).
(Brief overviews of future technology in the areas of information, transportation,
medicine, machines, manufacturing, energy, and the environment. Predictions and
critical analysis by 35 of the nation's foremost experts on technology.)
Slouka, M. (1995). War of the worlds: Cyberspace and the high-tech assault on reality.
New York: Basic Books.
(The emerging pathologies of Internet use. Not a temperate analysis, but as it is about
a generation still creating itself, one we have yet to know, perhaps it is worth attending.)
Snider, R.C. (1992). The machine in the classroom. Phi Delta Kappan, 74, 316-323.
(A wide-ranging look at information technologies in education. Examines what has
happened so far and what we have learned.)
Stoll, C. (1996). Silicon snake oil: Second thoughts on the information highway. New York:
Anchor Books.
(By the author of The Cuckoo's Egg, this is the most readable and balanced of the
critiques written for the trade press. A true insider from the start of the information
age, Stoll has the credentials to warn: "Proceed with caution!")
COMMODORE CLUB
279
Weiss, A.M. (1996). System 2000: If you build it can you manage it? Phi Delta Kappan, 77,
408-415.
(A close examination of what is required to operate a computer system for the class
rooms of a school.A persuasive account of why our propensity for purchasing before
planning is strangling information technology in education--beforeit has an opportunity to demonstrate what it can accomplish.)
Notes
The list of references noted here has been appended at the close of this article.
At this point, the speaker picked up the computer and held it extended overhead as
a demonstration of its compact size and modest weight.
T h e idea for such a list was inspired by an article by Wendell Barry, contained in the
collection edited by Henderson (1996)-see the list of selected references.