Sound Bites

I was reading an article "Plugged in? Class Computers don't guarantee students
do better"  (a synopsis of the more in depth article
"Do
Computers In The Classroom Boost Academic Achievement?" by
Kirk
Johnson a policy analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at the
Heritage Foundation,
a Washington based public policy research institute. Actually this article
was forced upon me by another of the "sound bite" generation that so often
prevails at attempts of open discussion. You know the type: "I heard it on
Oprah, Monty, Jerry, Dan Rather … therefore it must be true.

Not to belittle Mr. Johnson's attempt at a serious prevailing thought --
that is not my intent Mr. Johnson does a pretty good job of that himself.
My intent is to debug Mr. Johnson's attempt at "sound-bite" journalism. First
I do agree with Mr. Johnson's summation that "Equipping our classrooms with
computers is not the same thing as equipping our children to learn." But
this does not state that technology is bad or as he puts it "We think it
works but we're not sure." In Mr. Johnson's haste to put together a sound-bite
article reflecting the Right Wing Politics of "we spend too much in education"
he neglected to do the research that us teachers have to do everyday just
to justify our lesson plan of the day. Instead of quoting one source a Cindy
Bowman, an education professor at Florida State University perhaps Mr. Johnson
could have looked at the tomes of research put out by numerous professional
education journals (three of which come to mind.
SETP (Special Education
Technology Practice);
JTE,
(the Journal of technology Education) and
TAM; (Technology and
Media Division of the Council for Exceptional Children) come to mind because
I subscribe to them.
TARGET="_blank">There are many others which a 60 second cursory search through
Yahoo produced.)

What we forget in the sound-bite world is that computers are "viewed" as
the end all savior of our schools. This is one thing it definitely is not.
Technology enhances the education development of our students. And while
statistically parents education, home environment, socioeconomic status as
well as one's own preferences play a very powerful in the development of
our stud4ents' abilities -- what do we have left for those who do not benefit
from this sort of life? Technology in schools allows us to connect those
who would otherwise remain unconnected. It allows us to teach to those students
in a different realm a new media as it is. BUT we need educated teachers
teaching this new technology otherwise we end up with thousands of dollars
of ugly paperweights that we can play solitaire with.

Mr. Johnson also brings up a very good point about physical activity in the
school. How it fits in his article I do not understand since children are
either sitting at a desk or sitting at a computer. I agree with Mr. Johnson
and suggest that we put athletics back into the school curricula, that and
music and singing and recess. Yes, I advocate recess for everyone! Except
that recess must be about getting together with other people and playing.
Not sitting in a room drinking coffee and complaining about the world. Real
physical activity, like 4-square, or catch, (for us who need to begin with
less strenuous activities.) I think Mr. Johnson would agree with me there
since America tends to be the fattest and laziest nation of them all.

Again Mr. Johnson hits us with sound-bites. He does not realize that the
computer can be the teacher's assistant: a never tiring, always cheerful,
supportive tutor that can accompany the teacher's academic training. Will
the computer replace the teacher in the classroom?
Ray
Kurzweill believes so and honestly so do I. Academics are a step ladder
of experience and understanding. These things can be taught by a sophisticated
machine, albeit a machine which does not yet exist. Will these machines replace
teachers altogether? No, I think there will be a need for someone to organize
the machine's input and output and I also believe that the role of teachers
will hang to one of more behavioral instruction

But again I walk away from Mr. Johnson's article. Mr. Johnson also compares
apples to oranges which we as educators learned back in teaching 101. Yes
the benefits of technology are primarily observational but then so is the
education of our children. To apply a number to fit a statistical analysis
is trying to make orange juice with apples. Mr. Johnson is an educated man
and therefore realizes this -- yet the sound-bites that he utters compare
the national standardized tests as a method for demonstrating improvement
or non-improvement. These tests as most educators will tell you do not represent
nor reflect the knowledge attained by the participant. But it does give us
nice round numbers.

Finally I am left with the lasting image of many scholars and "educated men"
who descended upon modern technology as an abomination. Students would learn
less because there would be less memorization. Students would spend their
time on "play" instead of serious academics. The world was supposed to become
an illiterate mass of imbeciles because of this newest technology , a technology
which would take the education out of those learned institutions and assemblages
and place it into the untrusting hands of the individual, the masses as it
were: this uneducated rabble who would
"heighten
their awareness" , "choose" their path towards education.

Today we know this abomination of modern technology as the
printing
press.