Unless Teachers Get Involved, Wiring Schools Just Enriches Computer Makers
A river of technology dollars is flowing through the nation’s schools. Governors, corporate leaders and taxpayers vote with their wallets that putting computers into the classroom is good for the country and good for children. School boards and administrators excitedly use the money to wire schools, buy hardware and software, and train teachers. But the techno-enthusiast bubble is about to be pricked by the needle of the techno-skeptic.
Within the last few months, several newspaper articles and books have raised questions about the wisdom of spending ever more school dollars on computers. Their authors are not Luddites but former engineers, scientists and industry insiders. They all challenge the oft-repeated claim that computers produce better-educated kids.
The question both educators and non-educators want answered is whether students indeed learn faster and better with computers. So far, no researcher can state with confidence that students using computers will clearly enhance their learning or improve their overall test scores.
What can be said without qualification is that computer-assisted instruction--or its novelty effect--raises student motivation for a while. But such motivation fades over time. What researchers (and insightful teachers) do know is that under certain conditions, certain students in certain subjects--and depending on how long they have used the relevant software--can learn as well as, if not better than, students conventionally instructed. Put another way: anyone justifying the purchase and use of computers on grounds that all students will learn more, better and faster is lying.
Yet, if the overall value of computers cannot be justified in terms of learning, why is all this money being spent on new technologies? There are two reasons.
Parents, corporate executives and ad hoc citizens’ groups, each pursuing different interests, lobby school boards and state legislatures for technology funds. School policymakers and administrators naturally respond to influential coalitions and, with money in hand, wire schools and buy machines.
Second, school officials, in the last two decades, have largely converted to the belief that education in an information-driven society is crucial to America’s global economic success. Turning schools into high-tech boot camps in preparation for an increasingly computerized workplace has a compelling logic to educators, parents and corporate leaders. Learning how to use computers is seen as essential as the 3Rs. No surprise, then, that there will be continuing pressure upon schools to secure new information technologies for children to use.
But should very young children be introduced to computers and, if so, how much time should they spend in front of the screen? Early-childhood experts recommend limited use of computers. For preschoolers and kindergarteners, most experts recommend one or two machines in a classroom available to children for brief periods of time. They stress the importance of direct experience and social relationships during these years, which means limiting screen time, regardless of how engaging the software is.
Setting aside the issue of how much screen time for young children, educators know there are going to be many more computers in classrooms than ever before. The ratio of computers to students in many school districts will fall below 10:1, a dramatic change in less than a decade ago when it was 25:1.
This surge in the number of computers has fed much confusion over how they should be used. In the last decade, educators have shifted the instructional purpose of technology from a concentration on students learning computer languages and becoming computer literate to using machines as tools to learn (e.g., using the Internet to do a research paper; drilling for a math test). Previously, the strategy was to cluster computers in labs or in a library (or both) where students would receive either group or individual instruction a few times a week.
If computers are viewed as learning tools, who should decide where they should be placed and how many? The short answer is teachers, the gatekeepers to learning. Until they decide how, where and under what conditions computers are allocated, students’ use of classroom technologies will be occasional and marginal. Only teachers can integrate the use of computers with the subject matter and skills that they are expected to teach and upon which students are tested. Unfortunately, it is policy-makers and administrators, save for a token teacher here and there, who make the key decisions about using computers in schools.
Top-down decision making begins with governors and legislatures allocating millions of dollars to wire schools and purchase computers. School boards and superintendents then decide whether to house computers in labs, libraries or classrooms. Principals, looking over their shoulders at district headquarters, press teachers to use new hardware and software. At the bottom of this long chain of command is the infantry of school reform who is expected to use this electronic box in imaginative ways: the teacher.
Truth be told, it will take decades for most teachers to successfully integrate computers into their daily classroom instruction. The reason goes to the heart of the problem of nonteachers asking teachers to make deep changes in their behavior without seriously considering what happens in classrooms.
For most teachers, there is little incentive to use machines beyond preparing lessons and keeping the grade book. For example, teachers have yet to be convinced that all students learn more, better and faster with computers. Variations in software make it difficult to figure out what works, with whom and when. Moreover, seldom does the software match existing curriculum or annual tests. Finally, when teachers do invest in learning how to use the equipment, it often breaks down and there is seldom help to get the machines up and running again promptly. In short, there is no compelling reason, in either reputed student benefits or practical efficiencies, for teachers to alter their work lives. Perhaps this is why most administrators and teachers agree that sending classes to labs and the library is the best way to use computers in schools.
The unthinking rush to wire schools and buy machines within the last decade has enriched high-tech companies but produced underwhelming results for students. Somewhere between techno-enthusiasm and techno-skepticism lies a middle ground, where practitioners, public officials and taxpayers can ask the tough questions without having to make excessive claims or use scare tactics. That middle ground will emerge when teachers are allowed to make more decisions about how best to use the computer in their classrooms.
