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Mart Laanpere, Senior Lecturer at TU Centre for Educational Technology claims that student’s books have become “Maslow’s Hammers” in today’s teaching.

We can still find bookworms who are willing to give up on any technological advantage a numb and techy e-book brings, just to get the emotion of the smell and the feel of a real book. You have also probably heard or read some of our politicians claim that e-books will “destroy civilization and culture”.

Opposing the newest technologies to culture is not a new phenomenon, nor is it only common for those in humanities, who keep a distance from technology. Among the first generation of IT specialists there were those who thought abandoning the perforated tapes would be the start of the demise of the Computer. This phenomenon is partly brought on by simplifying technology and therefore lessening its elitism. When half a century ago there were a couple dozen people capable of operating a computer, then today digital technology is something for everybody. Half the people in Estonia carry a smartphone, which has more operating capability than a desktop computer from ten years ago. How people use this technology, is a completely different matter. The most powerful smartphone can just be used for calling as well.

The American Psychologist Abraham Maslow has laid down the “law of hammers”: If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem will start to resemble a nail. To Maslow, this meant the inclination to solve complex problems with easy generic solutions. The way lazy builders use hammers to not only install nails, but also screws and bolts, is a good example here.

Could we use the “law of hammers” to our own benefit, by giving them new and comfortable tools that help them use innovative and smarter solutions, breaking their old habits? For example, in health, digital devices for following your movements and diets, documenting them and sharing them with your friends, have become common and have changed the habits of many people.

The researchers at the TU Centre for Educational Technology are primarily interested in possible changes in the context of school, learning and teaching, which still hold many old habits and beliefs impeding the onset of smarter teaching. So far technology has held the role of bringing knowledge to the learner, whose head is pictured as an empty bowl waiting to be filled with facts, terms, procedures and rules. Today’s educational sciences see learning as more of an active creation of new knowledge about solving real-life problems and expressing oneself, which is achieved by mutual cooperation of the learners. New technology – mainly smart devices and social media – offers great possibilities for making this true.

One of the most important tools in teaching today is the printed book, which tends to fill the role of Maslow’s hammer. If a book goes missing, both the teacher and the student become helpless. Before the computer, the book was always printed and that generated certain process patterns:  the book was read alone, it always told the complete truth, it was not to be criticized, chopped up nor improved with your own information. The new generation digital study books might not even be e-books, which put the student in the same role as its paper counterpart. The student becomes a co-author of the digital study book, giving their input to the design, content, exercises and evaluation of the books.

In social media, young people are already used to be active contributors. A new breed of e-study books made for smart digital devices should become the “Trojan Horses” of the future, bringing new comprehension about studying as an active process of knowledge making and also breaking old habits in schools.  For this, every e-book must come with a digital “tool case”, into which every student and teacher can add their own tools so they won’t have to complete every task with the same “hammer”.