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Education Week: Smart Thinking About Educational Technology

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Saved by 9 people (0 private), first by anonymouse user on 2008-04-02


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Simplistic thinking is often applied to educational technology. Either it’s the greatest approach to education ever invented or it’s a waste of money.

Highlighted by jessmcculloch

Simplistic thinking is often applied to educational technology. Either it’s the greatest approach to education ever invented or it’s a waste of money. We can do better than such limited rhetoric. Too many advocates rely on weak arguments, such as “students are digital natives, so we should use more technology,” as if schools should have used radio and TV more often when earlier generations grew up with those media. Stanford University’s Larry Cuban was right to warn against the excessive “hype” one hears about the value of computers.

Highlighted by bobkehr

weak arguments, such as “students are digital natives, so we should use more technology,”

Highlighted by jessmcculloch

On the other hand, a majority of skeptics have failed to notice how quickly online schools, computer-based testing, and other powerful innovations are spreading, and how significant they are.

Highlighted by bobkehr

Digital technology provides a powerful toolkit, offering unique advantages (such as bridging time and distance, democratizing access to information and services, and leveraging exponential increases in computer power) that have helped transform other organizations, especially those based on information and knowledge

Highlighted by jessmcculloch

Making schools more engaging and relevant (thereby helping reduce the disastrous high school dropout rates in many districts);

• Providing high-quality schooling for all students (including English-language learners and students with disabilities);

• Attracting, preparing, and retaining high-quality teachers;

• Increasing support for children from parents and the community; and

• Requiring accountability for results (including providing more information about schools to policymakers and the public).

Educators need to consider how digital tools are used to help achieve each of these goals, because transforming schools requires attention to all six, not only one.

Highlighted by jessmcculloch

Because these changes happened so quickly, it is a challenge to think clearly about schools’ uses of digital tools.

Highlighted by jessmcculloch

By using computers, the Internet, and other digital technologies in smart ways, schools are beginning to be transformed into the more modern, effective, responsive institutions that society needs.

Highlighted by jessmcculloch

these modifications are not yet widely known or understood.

Highlighted by jessmcculloch