Life in Cyberland

It has been almost a year since I last set foot in the "I.T. classroom" at ye olde academy, and it has changed a lot.

Actually, that room has already gone through some considerable changes since I started working at Seishin in 1996. It started out as just a large extra classroom, one that was often used for my upper-grade English lessons. Then, in 1997, they started converting it into a computer lab. They put in special desks with pop-up monitors and keyboards on pull-out drawers. Each one contained a Pentium II computer. There was also a projector in the corner, two large network printers, and a teacher's desk with a pair of master control computers, a MIDI music setup, and a number of conveniences. The neighboring room, which was originally intended to be a department office, came to contain twin servers, extra hard drives, a couple of workstations, and a whole lot of spare parts.

As it turned out, they hardly used it at all except as an ordinary extra classroom with the machines locked up. Frankly speaking, it was a bloody waste of time, effort, and money (not to mention potential...though it did provide plenty of advertising propaganda).

So now I'm here today, and they've completely reworked it. The basic layout is the same, but the pop-up/pullout desktop machines are gone. Instead, there are locking cabinets containing a mass of laptop computers. Each student checks out his or her own machine, takes it from the cabinet, carries it to his or her desk, connects the AC adaptor plug that is built into the desk, boots up, logs in, and is then able to access the internet via wireless network. The teacher's station not only looks more modern than before, with twin large-size LCD touch-screen monitor panels, but it also has much more comprehensive network control including the ability to tap directly into the monitors of individual student machines, send messages to them, or even shut them down remotely (displaying a very cute screen saying [in Japanese], "YOU'VE BEEN STOPPED! Go see the teacher...and do what he says).

POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
UNLIMITED POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*ahem* Anyway, that's not why I'm here. Thirty-two students have applied to participate in Seishin's first exchange contingent to our sister-school in Caloundra, Australia. We plan to take twenty. We have to weed some of them out. Today we start the trial by fire with an English proficiency test. It's not just any test, either. It's being done through a contractor, and the whole thing is carried out online.

For some strange reason I have suckered myself into setting things up all by my lonesome, so I have this sterile-looking, plastic-smelling room all to myself. The only sound is the eerie symphony of the various fans in the projector, master control, and heating system. It's bloody hot in here, and when I check the environmental controls (heh heh...I LOVE saying that!) I see it's set at 29 degrees Centigrade (84 degrees Fahrenheit), so I promptly reset it. Unfortunately, since this is one of the few well-insulated rooms, it's going to be an oven for a while at least. Taking thirty-two laptops out of the cabinets, hooking them up, connecting the mice, preparing headphones for each, and then booting all of them up takes almost a full hour. Still, it's enjoyable somehow. Kind of a Zen thing. I'm feeling peaceful and reflective, and it's almost too bad when the other two teachers show up with the company consultant.

Not long afterward, the applicants start to ooze in in gobs of three or four. I say "ooze" and "gobs" because some of them are so nervous they can barely move...and they are drowning in sweat. (Of course, that might be because the room is still so damned hot!)

The consultant guides the jittery rabble through the initial log-on and talks them through the website's complicated sign-in procedure one teeny tiny step at a time. It's a good thing, too; some of these kids are whizzes at math or English but can barely tie their shoes. After a lot of fuss and bother we finally get all of them to the "start" dialog. Then, with a few anxious twitches here and there, the kids press The Button and launch the test.

It's wild watching them take it. It starts out with basic multiple-choice problems dealing with grammar and vocabulary. From there it goes to picture/story and then listening problems. The whole thing is as colorful, animated, and creative as a modern website, and the students almost look like they're having fun even while nervous enough to shatter at the least provocation. The fixed time limit, which counts down very visibly in the upper right of every screen (fraying the kids' nerves even more) is only halfway gone when the first few get to the "end" screen. Others make it there one by one over the next half hour. After they finish, they help me break down their computers and return them to the cabinets, and then they bolt from the room as fast as they can go.

Each individual's results are available for immediate printout as soon as s/he finishes, but we decide the printer is too noisy and save them on disk for future reference instead. Still, it's convenient to be able to take a quick look at each student's score right at the end. Another beauty of the test is that each student works at his or her own pace. Most of them are in good shape, so it goes rather quickly. The trickle turns into a flash flood, and soon the room is empty again.

There is no scoring chore facing us at all. We'll just check out the results by fax in a couple of days. Isn't technology wonderful?

Japan has long since arrived at the age where most cram schools use computers or self-study machines so that (ideally) each student can always find his own guidance and support in that flat-screened world. Now our I.T. classroom has evolved into something very similar. We've heard plenty of nay-sayers, though. For one thing, it's all so impersonal and antisocial. The students basically have no need for each other or for their teachers; they just live in their own, private cyberworlds, doing what they want when and how they want at their own pace. We have to wonder if the increasing lack of motivation, blatant disregard for others, and inability to interact with classmates among new students entering our school has at least some of its roots in the increasingly online world of children in this era. Of course, a lot of that probably has more to do with those cell phones which have become something like a new vital organ for young people. Still, after watching students take this exciting, fast, convenient, automated, trouble-free, and totally impersonal test without any interaction with anyone else (unless they encounter something that isn't automated, whereupon several of them immediately get stuck), I can't help feeling that the world seems somehow colder. Quicker, easier, more seductive, but colder.

Maybe that's why the heater was turned up so damned high...