Possibility Grid

In his recent book, The Life We’re Looking For, Andy Crouch describes the way marketers talk about new tech products:

1. Now you can …
2. Now you don’t have to …

Crouch argues that there are two more ways we need to look at new tech to get a good read on whether it’s worth using:

3. Now you can’t …
4. Now you have to …

I like to think of these four statements as related like this in a grid of possibilities:

	Can we?	Must we?
Yes	1. Now you can ...	4. Now you have to ...
No	3. Now you can't ...	2. Now you don't have to ...

Consider the interstate highway system. Because it exists, 

1. Now we can travel or transport goods a lot more quickly and cheaply over greater distances.
2. Now we don’t have to develop towns and cities that permit non-automobile traffic.
3. But now you can’t access a lot of places without an automobile; and
4. Now we have to design cities and towns to accommodate auto traffic and parking, usually at the expense of living and working spaces.

The argument isn’t that interstates are bad, only that they have costs as well as benefits. The ads usually don’t tell you about the costs, so it’s worth reflecting on them for ourselves.

I think the possibility grid is relevant to teaching.

Consider the slide presentation. Because it exists,

1. Now we can use relevant pictures and diagrams to help communicate difficult concepts.
2. Now we don’t have to scribble on a whiteboard with our backs to the audience to pass on an important definition or diagram. 
   
   
3. But now we can’t expect students to develop aural memory or note-taking skills (it’s unnecessary—if it’s on the test the teacher just puts the words up there on the screen).
4. Now we have to maintain our slides, updating them when the software updates, finding a replacement for that defunct font, choosing just the right colors to show up despite the slowly-dying projector bulb with the big yellow blob in the middle of the picture.

There’s more in each of the four categories, of course. But this is a start. I can flip the polarity of those statements (now we can becomes now we can’t, etc.) to predict the costs and benefits of discarding the tech in question. 

For example, what if I stop using a PowerPoint for my class? 

1. Now I can expect students to develop some aural memory and note-making skills, especially since they don’t have the PowerPoint distracting them.

And so on. 

What are the costs of the tech tool you’re thinking about adopting? 

What might you gain by ditching some tech in the classroom?