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Technolust

“In the past two decades, the interest in educational technology has developed into a full-blown obsession,” notes Jack Schneider in Education Week. Citing evidence that all the bright shiny computers at every level of the American education system don’t seem to be improving anything, Schneider suggests that all the money goes to computers because

it can be easy to credit technology for what makes a class “work.” Head to a thriving school where every student has a tablet computer, and you might be tempted to think that you’ve stumbled on a solution: Tablet PCs help kids thrive! You are also likely, however, to be on campus at a well-resourced school with lots of other things going for it. Working to pinpoint a particular practice that makes a good school work, in other words, is to deny the deep complexity of the educational environment.

The other reason that the reform elite loves technology is that it can be taken to scale. Great teachers, after all, are also easy to credit for a school that works. But how do we get one in every classroom? The iPad, on the other hand, requires only a checkbook.

He concludes:

[M]oney that goes to technology could just as easily have been spent on other approaches that, though perhaps not scalable, are directly connected to the processes of teaching and learning. Funding projects to improve teacher training, development, and retention, for instance, is less sexy than cutting the ribbon on a lab full of lightning-fast computers. But it’s also more likely to help kids learn.

UD thanks Bill for linking her to the article.

Margaret Soltan, October 6, 2011 10:58AM
Posted in: technolust

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