THE COMPUTER DELUSION: http://www.tnellen.com/ted/tc/computer.htm
There is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve teaching
and learning, yet school districts are cutting programs -- music,art, physical education
-- that enrich children's lives to make room
for this dubious nostrum, By Todd Oppenheimer
ARE COMPUTERS WRECKING SCHOOLS?: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3225740/
A new and controversial book argues that computers have done far more harm than
good to education, Newsweek Web Exclusive, October, 2003
FOOLS GOLD: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood: http://www.allianceforchildhood.net/projects/computers/computers_reports.htm
This paper was put together by eighty leading academics, doctors,
psychologists and other experts. In compiling this document, the
Alliance assembled mounds of literature, each piece of which added to
the sense that the hurried embrace of computers might really be
damaging children- not only their social and cognitive development,
but also their physical health… Once all of their material was
assembled it made enough of a case that the experts joined the
Alliance in calling for a moratorium on computers in the
elementary grades, at least until a decent study of the questions
could be done by the Surgeon General. The moratorium call landed like
a bomb, producing headlines across the country. But within months,
the public’s fervor for the shiny promise of computers resumed, and
all the experts’ warnings were largely forgotten.
DOUBTS OVER HI TECH WHITEBOARDS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6309691.stm
Computerised whiteboards in class fail to boost pupil achievement, research into their early use suggests. Interactive whiteboards (IWB) can even "slow the pace of whole class learning", the study commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills suggested. They can also lead to "relatively mundane activities being over-valued", the Institute of Education study found. “Physical interactivity with the IWB was seldom harnessed to produce significant shifts in understanding” BBC News, January 2007
(The Okemos School Board wants to buy 222 of these at a cost of $308,400, along with 228 “room amplification devices” at an additional cost of $273,000)
COMPUTERS IN SCHOOLS: http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=798
Many believe that the future of education includes a laptop in every child's bookbag. But
teachers, parents, and students are paying a price for the emphasis
on technology in the classroom. Though I am a computer teacher, it is
becoming obvious to me that this constant effort to infuse technology
into education is more likely to harm than help our children. By
Lowell Monke, A computer teacher with the Des Moines Public School
District in Iowa.
COMPUTER MYTHS AND REALITIES http://www.booknoise.net/flickeringmind/myths/index.html, By Todd Oppenheimer
BRAIN WASH - The most commonly heard selling points for computers in schools—and what the author discovered to be true in classrooms across the country.FALSE PROMISE: Computers prepare youngsters for the increasingly high-tech jobs of tomorrow.
Oppenheimer's rebuttal: "Education's technology promoters have the situation backwards. Students actually do not need extensive computer experience to handle technology's challenges (employers prefer teaching most of those specific skills themselves). What employers do look for is an extensive set of people skills: the ability to listen and communicate; to think critically and imaginatively; to read, write, and figure; and many other capabilities that schools are increasingly neglecting." (Chapter 6—Computer Literacy: Limping toward Tomorrow's Jobs)FALSE PROMISE: Computers improve both teaching practices and student achievement.
Oppenheimer's rebuttal: Educators, parents, and politicians frequently invest in new education programs, both high-tech and low-tech, based on highly questionable research put forth by the technology companies. For example, Renaissance Learning, the nation's largest purveyor of reading software, has built its success on what it maintains is a solid array of research proving that its programs increase student achievement; however, independent researchers have found their methods stunning in their dishonesty. (Chapter 9—The Research Game: Faith and Testing in Las Vegas)FALSE PROMISE: Increasing the number of computers in the classroom will decrease the "digital divide" between the rich and the poor.
Oppenheimer's rebuttal: For decades, most media attention on the subject of computers in schools has focused on efforts, led by both government and private interests, to close what's been called "the digital divide." (The term ostensibly describes the situation wherein poor children have less access to high technology than wealthy children do, and thus fall increasingly far behind.) In reality, this campaign has increased the true divide between rich and poor, by putting poor students at further intellectual disadvantage. By and large, computers have given schools an easy way to neglect the hard work of teaching and learning, replacing it with shortcuts and high-tech tricks that have entranced both teachers and parents. What we've done, Oppenheimer argues, is "fool the poor with computers." Aggravating these intellectual inequities are continuing financial inequities in the schools, which have widened in recent years. (Chapter 2—Fooling the Poor with Computers: Harlem, New York)FALSE PROMISE: Computers are necessary to bring students valuable connections with a global education community.
Oppenheimer's rebuttal: This pursuit operates on two fronts: through encouraging student research on the Internet, and through online "Distance Learning” courses—the latest craze in high-tech schooling. Despite the allure (and cost-effectiveness) of online courses, students frequently complain that these classes are not interesting, and only increase their sense of isolation. As for Internet research, problems of control here are serious. Schools are now required by law to purchase "filtering" software that protects children from illicit material. But many schools can't afford these systems, which can cost $50,000 for a tiny district. When schools do pony up the cash for filtering systems, the software often doesn't work, and students regularly hack through it anyway. (Chapter 2: Fooling the Poor with Computers; Chapter 3—breaking Down Rural Isolation: Hundred, West Virginia; Chapter 8: The Spoils of Industry Partnership)
TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS: SOME SAY IT DOESN'T COMPUTE http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin121.shtml
Technology changes faster than educational researchers can study it. Although many researchers insist
computers are valuable in schools, they readily admit they can't yet say whether technology actually helps
kids achieve educational goals. Have schools jumped onto the technology bandwagon too soon? In this story,
Education World focuses on some of the research that makes a strong case against the way technology is
currently used in schools.
EDUCATION NEXT: FLAWED RESEARCH BY EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE COMPANIES COMES AT HIGH COST TO SCHOOLS http://www.hoover.org/pubaffairs/whatsnew/6357487.html
STANFORD -- In a rush to meet requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act that instructional materials
purchased with federal aid be scientifically proven effective, educational software companies are promoting
research that is substandard and often misleading, according to a new report in the spring 2007 issue of
Education Next. The vast majority of studies on education products of any kind--fully 75 percent--reviewed
by the federal government do not meet its scientific standards, warns Todd Oppenheimer, author of the Education
Next report.
THE FLICKERING MIND: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology by Todd Oppenheimer (Author)
This book in circulation at Okemos Public Library.
Read about the book at Booknoise.net
Read about the book on Amazon.com
Editorial Reviews
“This is the most important book of its kind since Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities, and it carries the same torch—telling us what’s really going on inside the public education system. The Flickering Mind is a powerful work and a must-read for anyone who cares what will be within the minds of the next generation of Americans.” —Gregg Easterbrook, senior editor of The New Republic, author of The Progress Paradox
“Todd Oppenheimer brings two great strengths to the subject he explores in The Flickering Mind: an understanding of technology’s possibilities and limitations, and an appreciation for the day-by-day realities of the way children learn. He also has a good eye for what is working, and why, in the classroom—and for what is hucksterish in the sales tactics used to promote high-tech learning. The combination makes The Flickering Mind authoritative and original, clear in its main message but also nuanced and fair.”
—James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, author of breaking the News
“Todd Oppenheimer addresses the implications of computers in the classroom in a work of impressive scholarship and balanced judgment. He reviews evidence of how political leaders and some ambitious educators have ‘oversold’ the value of computers at the cost of the human features of learning, the challenge and excitement of teacher-student interaction, and the stimulation of imagination. This is a provocative but potentially constructive contribution to education for our time.”
—Jerome L. Singer, Ph.D., professor of psychology and child study at Yale University, co-editor of Handbook of Children and the Media
“A splendid book, humane and smart, with the authority that comes only from lots of patient reporting. For those who care about children, this is an important—and impressively sensible—guide to what has gone wrong with schools and how we can put matters right, if parents and educators can get free of inflated promises.”
—William Greider, National Book Award nominee, author of The Soul of Capitalism
FAILURE TO CONNECT: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds -- and What We Can Do About It (Paperback)
by Jane
M. Healy (Author)
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This important book is a welcome addition to the growing (and long overdue) debate about how much of a good thing it is to mix computers and children.Healy is a professional educator of wide experience, and a recovering techno-fundamentalist. She is scrupulously fair about the evidence presented in various studies on the ways computers help or hinder learning, and quick to offer positive anecdotes where there are positive ones to be had. (She freely notes, for example, what a miracle computers have been for some handicapped children.) But her conclusions about the routine use of computer technology in the classroom are overwhelmingly--and persuasively--negative.
A major theme of Failure to Connect is the federal government's culpable idiocy (not her term, but she implies as much) in jumping uncritically, to the tune of $4 billion a year, on the "computer in every classroom" bandwagon. As she shows, there is scant evidence that computers teach basic skills any better than traditional methods, or that children who don't have computers are somehow "left behind." Conversely, there is abundant evidence that an uncritical infatuation with computers as an educational panacea is replacing skill building and learning with formless play while forcing art and music lessons, and in some cases math textbooks, off many school budgets.
Healy writes lucidly, neatly balancing her discussion of the issues with practical, undogmatic advice for parents and educators. A sober and sobering read about a crucial issue. --Richard Farr
OVERSOLD AND UNDERUSED: Computers in the Classroom (Paperback)
by
Larry Cuban (Author)
Editorial ReviewsFrom Publishers Weekly
Challenging "the belief that if technology were introduced to the classroom, it would be used; and if it were used, it would transform schooling," Stanford education professor Larry Cuban (Teachers and Machines) provides a jargon-free, critical look at the actual use of computers by teachers and students in early childhood education, high school and university classrooms in Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom. Combining an historical overview of school technologies with statistical data and direct observation of classroom practices in several Silicon Valley schools, he concludes that, "Without a broader vision of the social and civic role that schools perform in a democratic society, our excessive focus on technology use in schools runs the danger of trivializing our nation's core ideals."
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library JournalCuban (education, Stanford) has written extensively about school reform (e.g., How Scholars Trumped Teachers). In his latest work, he disputes the policymakers who have thrust computers into schools without much regard for the educators who are expected to improve students' learning with the new technologies. In fact, Cuban's 2001-2000 study of Silicon Valley schools, discussed and analyzed in the first two-thirds of the book, showed that less than ten percent of the teachers used their classroom computers at least once a week. Another unanticipated finding was that there was no evidence that information technologies increased students' academic achievement. Arguing that the educational revolution that computers were expected to incite has progressed far too slowly, he recommends that administrators involve teachers in the planning and implementation of technology plans and allow them more unstructured time, technical support, and professional development opportunities to optimize the educational benefits that computers offer. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the
Hardcover edition