The 3 Rs in the Digital Age

In education, wholesale changes have been driven by the use of the personal computer and related computing devices.

   A traditional view is that the core pillars of education are the 3 Rs: Reading, Writing and 'Rithmetic.  Many have argued their relative primacy but my guess is most still agree that much education is built on proficiencies with reading, writing, and quantitative skills. For quite a long time, the way these skills were delivered and learned was relatively unchanged. But in the digital age, dating back to the early 1980s, we've seen continuing educational change relative to these 3 Rs.

   Mathematics was the first of these education basics to undergo a digital challenge. It came in the form of a calculator.  The personal calculator challenged many long-held assumptions about math education.  Proponents suggested it eliminated the need for rote learning of times tables and other similar math functions. Math educators who pushed back relied on the argument that pushing buttons might yield correct answers at the expense of deeper understanding.

   In the digital age, a calculator may be a physical device or an app in another device.  Pictured above, a screen shot of the PCalc app being used on an iPad.

   Today, it's a debate largely examined as a historical footnote. Calculators are widely used at many age levels from elementary school through graduate programs. They are utilized wherever quantitative analysis is needed.  And though the understanding of math concepts is still critically important in math education, it is now taught through calculators, not in the absence of calculators.

   Writing also began to be digitally transformed in the 1980's with the introduction of the personal computer.  In schools, two models tended to lead the way; the Apple IIE and the IBM PC.  My first office computer was the IBM PC. I was a college counselor at the time (probably about 1985-86) and of course writing letters of recommendation for seniors was a critical task. For a year or two, I continued to write my letters on a pad and then use the computer to type the letters. I told myself I couldn't write on a computer.  But soon enough I forced myself to use the computer as a writing tool and like so many others, immediately saw the benefits.  Editing was so much easier when word processing.

   Some may rue the passing of penmanship as a valued byproduct of education, but it's fair to say that any debate about whether it is or is not educationally sound to use computers as a writing tool is essentially nonexistent. Writing on a computer, in my experience, was not a qualitatively different experience than writing on a pad or typewriter, at least in terms of thought processes and content. The difference is all about efficiency; computer writing allows for greater speed, easier editing and better content management.  

    A recent article in The Chronicle Review (2/13/15), "Why I Write on My Mobile Phone," by Jeffrey Wilson, put forth a fresh angle of computer-based writing. Mr. Wilson suggests that writing on a phone offers a unique writing environment that meshes neatly with the lifestyle of busy, multi-tasking young professional-in-training.  His essay uses his use of his phone to complete his dissertation as a case in point.  I haven't yet experimented with his technique which involves much walking around and thinking followed by some brief dictation into his phone followed by more walking and further dictation.  Later, the recorded sentences are transcribed into a word document. Just another example that the 3Rs aren't what they used to be.

Is this student texting, looking at an app or writing an essay?

   Speaking of change in the 3Rs, it's my guess that reading has drawn the greatest attention as a learning skill affected by the digital age. A few different battle lines have been drawn around reading. One is the debate about whether reading a paper book is some way fundamentally different from reading the same book on a screen.  The debate gets fine-tuned in schools when the issue of "general reading" vs. "text" reading is raised.  These arguments center on retention, note-taking ability, screen time and backpack weight, among other topics.

A traditional approach to reading: browse the shelves and select something of interest.

   In my experience, reading on a screen is essentially the same as reading from paper.  My current habits are very mixed.  I get a week-end newspaper delivery, and read the paper online the rest of the week.  I've generally got a book going, and it might be paper, or I might use the Kindle app on my iPad or I might read the book on a Kindle.  To me, there's no difference. Really!  But if I was a student working with a text book and I wanted to take notes in the book as I studied, I'm not sure what I'd prefer.  I'm certain, however, that I'd prefer a lighter backpack.

Reading on a Kindle is e-reading, though the interactivity available through other platforms is largely missing.

  But much of my book reading is not what I call full feature e-reading.  In my definition, full feature e-reading is text that takes full advantage of digital technologies to include links and multimedia content. My online newspaper reading, for instance, is what I would call an e-reading experience.  And here's the criticism of this type of e-reading; by its very structure it encourages skimming and searching and thus creates ever shortening attention spans.  I think there's some truth to this criticism, at least for the "encourages skimming and searching" part.  That's both the excitement and the frustration of e-reading.  There's so much to learn by skimming and searching, but the learning can feel superficial. Interesting, in the same issue of The Chronicle Review cited above, there was another article titled "The Plague of tl;dr" byNaomi Baron. 

   tl;dr - Are you familiar with this abbreviation? I had seen it a few times earlier. It stands for too long, didn't read. In the article, Professor Baron reviews some of the research available of screen reading and wonders why everyone is in such a rush to get through written content. She also suggests that our culture's current reading style is beginning to shape the writing habits of authors. Writing, she feels, is increasingly packaged in smaller, discrete blocks to make it more readable to those who routinely skim and search. One example: For those who no longer have the time for SparkNotes, try Blinkist, an app designed to have you understand outstanding nonfiction works in 15 minutes. (Hopefully, fiction works will soon be covered so I can finally take on War and Peace.)

   One last thought about reading in these digital times.  More and more, it's common to listen to a book as opposed to physically reading it. The technology of audio books has been around a long time, but the confluence of downloading systems, streaming, libraries of digital content and audiobook providers like Amazon have made the practice far more common than in the past. And listening begs the question: "Is listening to a book the same as reading a book in terms of understanding?"  Listening and reading are different experiences, to be sure, but I suspect both can be equally informative. I'm not sure where I stand on this particular issue. Last summer, for instance, I listened to one of Walter Issacson's non-fiction works over the course of a couple of long car rides. This winter, I read a book version of another of his books.  I think the version I read stuck with me more, but it's not much of a sample and I'm simply unsure where I stand on this right now.

   Change is never easy, and the changes engendered by digital technologies have proven especially challenging to education. But these same changes offer exciting possibilities, and that's why we continue to integrate technology into our learning environments.

Younger students today are growing up learning the 3Rs, though the way lessons are delivered was not imagined in the era of the McGuffey's Reader.  Looking ahead a generation or two, it is equally difficult to imagine what lies ahead.