Critical View of Educational Technology
The Christian Science Monitor has a review of a new book by Todd Oppenheimer titled The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom. . After five years of research, Oppenheimer finds quite a bit of evidence that much of what has been done to date has had very little postive effect. The blame falls to the nature of personal computers, and the tendency of the technology industry to push out hardware and software that is hard to use and undependable. Where the business world can afford the costs associated with keeping technology up and running, schools lack such funding.
The author does sound sympathetic to teachers. He is reluctant to make recommendations, but instead says:
“I have boiled down my feelings about the subject into a small set of hopes for schools. I hesitate to turn these hopes into formal recommendations for a reason. For decades, teachers and administrators have been battered [by] … all manner of ‘experts’ who do not spend their days cooped up in a room with dozens of unruly youngsters…. These teachers are doing God’s work.”
The book sounds like a good read, and raises some very important issues. You can read the whole review at www.csmonitor.com/2003/1014/p20s02-lecl.html.