The Computer Delusion

And so it continues....This article made me think of the YouTube video we saw today "Introducing Le Book". Was the book a daunting discovery whose relevance was argued over for years? Is technology in education the greatest invention since TV? The article, written in 1997, states that in a poll taken the prior year "U.S. teachers ranked computer skills and media technology as more "essential" than the study of European history, biology, chemistry, and physics; thank dealing with social problems such as drugs and family breakdown; than learning practical job skills". I have a very hard time believing that today the poll would result in the same conclusion. I think that we can acknowledge technology is changing so rapidly today that learning one set of skills may only last for 5 years. Workers today need to be able to learn on their own and adapt to change. If we are not teaching our students those skills, we are doing them a disservice as they enter the business world. We live in the world that requires some basic understanding of how computers function, even if it is only how to search the Internet using a web browser, create a word processing document and read email. Aside from positions that require in depth knowledge of computer languages or design, I have found that in my many years in business as long as you had an aptitude to learn and understood how a keyboard functioned, you could be taught to use any computer application. When I hired non-technical people I always looked for those, as did someone in the article, for those that had 'an ability to speak, write, and comprehend".
This article also talks about the teacher's role in technology and the problem that schools face when trying to implement it. School districts often end up with a variety of technology that is spread across the district and which is difficult to support due to lack of resource and funding. Similar problems existed in 1997 and will continue to exist until there is a fundamental shift how education is funded and well grounded research that shows the role that technology should play. Even today I think there is a lack of agreement in the overall role technology should play district wide. It is left to the teachers to determine how best to implement technology in the curriculum. There are pockets of excellence in many places but I wonder just how far we have actually come. One of my favorite quotes in this article is by Larry Cuban of Stanford University. He says "Schooling is not about information. It's getting kids to think about information. It's about understanding and knowledge and wisdom." (Blog Post 11)