1. From your experience, identify at least 3 benefits technology brings to the classroom. (3 marks)

2. Now read the article and explain 3 reasons why IT and computers in particular have had such a difficult time being successfully used in classroom instruction. (6 marks)

Schools should not emphasize computers in the classroom.

In 1922 Thomas Edison predicted that "the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and. . . in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of text­books." Twenty-three years later, in 1945, William Levenson, the director of the Cleveland public schools' radio station, claimed that "the time may come when a portable radio receiver will be as common in the classroom as is the blackboard." Forty years after that the noted psychologist B.P. Skinner, referring to the first days of his "teaching machines," in the late 1950s and early 1960s, wrote, "I was soon saying that, with the help of teaching machines and programmed instruction, students could learn twice as much in the same time and with the same effort as in a standard classroom." Ten years after Skinner's recollections were published, President Bill Clinton campaigned for "a bridge to the twenty-first century. . . where computers are as much a part of the classroom as blackboards." Clinton was not alone in his enthusiasm for a program estimated to cost somewhere between $40 billion and $100 billion over the next five years. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, talking about computers to the Re­publican National Committee early in 1997, said, "We could do so much to make education available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, that people could literally have a whole dif­ferent attitude toward learning."

UNQUESTIONED CLAIMS FOR TECHNOLOGY IN CLASSROOMS

If history really is repeating itself, the schools are in serious trou­ble. In Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology Since 192 0 (1986), Larry Cuban, a professor of education at Stanford Uni­versity and a former school superintendent, observed that as suc­cessive rounds of new technology failed their promoters' expec­tations, a pattern emerged. The cycle began with big promises backed by the technology developers' research. In the classroom, however, teachers never really embraced the new tools, and no significant academic improvement occurred. This provoked con­sistent responses: the problem was money, spokespeople argued, or teacher resistance, or the paralyzing school bureaucracy. Meanwhile, few people questioned the technology advocates' claims. As results continued to lag, the blame was finally laid on the machines. Soon schools were sold on the next generation of technology, and the lucrative cycle stalled all over again.

Today's technology evangels argue that we've learned our les­son from past mistakes. As in each previous round, they say that when our new hot technology-the computer-is compared with yesterday's, today's is better. "It can do the same things, plus. In a poll taken in the early 1980's teachers felt that computer education was more important than history, geography, English, other languages and dealing with family and social problems.

INCONCLUSIVE RESEARCH ON COMPUTERS IN EDUCATION

Clinton's vision of computerized classrooms arose partly out of the findings of the presidential task force-thirty-six leaders from industry, education, and several interest groups who have guided the Administration's push to get computers into the schools. The report of the task force, "Connecting K-12 Schools to the Information Superhighway" (produced by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.), begins by citing numerous studies that have apparently proved that computers enhance student achieve­ment significantly. One "meta-analysis" (a study that reviews other studies-in this case 130 of them) reported that comput­ers had improved performance in "a wide range of subjects. including language arts, math, social studies and science." Another found improved organization and focus in students' writing. A third cited twice the normal gains in math skills. Several schools boasted of greatly improved attendance.