On the Death of My Clicker: A Reflection on Technology and Pedagogy

At the risk of sounding ridiculous...I am grieving a small loss in my life. My faithful clicker that I believe I purchased during my last year teaching middle school science (in 2009) has died. It's a small grief, but I truly am sad about this.

Alas, dear Keyspan...we salute you.

Why grieve this ancient piece of technology? All right, grief might be too strong a word for it. But I did love this tool, and I used it well for a long, long time. The laser pointer still works, but everything else, from the forward and back buttons, to the volume controls, to the mouse buttons...all dead. I changed the batteries, just to be sure. No joy.

The clicker is kaput. A faithful tool that served me well for 13+ years...no more.

Why lament it's passing? Maybe it's just because it's so comfortable to use? Maybe it's just because it's so familiar to use? 

It's funny, the relationship we have with our tools. A quote often attributed to media theorist Marshall McLuhan (but I can't find a source for it?) gets at this: "We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us." I find this to be true in so many ways. The old saying is that if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail, and I think this is often the case with educational technologies as well--the tools we have at our disposal so often shape our thinking about what is pedagogically possible. 

With the death of my clicker, I have found myself much more closely tied to the podiums of the classrooms in which I teach. I don't like this much. I prefer to move around the room, getting a little closer to my students, teaching from the back of the classroom, or the side, or roaming around. The clicker represents some pedagogical freedom for me, I think. It shapes my behavior in the classroom, because it makes different things possible for my use of a slide deck. And without it, I feel more tethered--constrained, even. But notice that I didn't give up my slide decks, just because the tool that gives me more freedom in the classroom geography is finished. The technological ecosystem is disrupted, but not demolished by the removal of one tool from my toolbox. I think this is something worth thinking about.

Every tool has affordances (things it makes possible) and constraints (things it makes difficult.) Perhaps this is why I'm grieving the loss of the clicker a bit...it allowed me to expand the use of other technologies that I like to use when I'm teaching. The clicker's affordances expanded a few things for me, and made me, I hope, a bit more effective in my lecturing.

So, here's to the Keyspan, which served me well for so long! Rest in peace (or is that "rest in pieces?")

Ah, and...of course...I ordered a new clicker as a replacement. And this one has rechargeable batteries, and a green laser instead!