9/23/05
RETHINKING ED TECH:
ISN'T IT THE DUTY OF EDUCATORS TO MINIMIZE DISTRACTIONS?
There's a good story about laptop
computers in classrooms and the impact on the learning curve that was published
in this month's National Law Journal. It has serious implications for
all Nebraska K-12 schools rushing willy-nilly into expensive ed tech without
thinking through the damage to kids' thinking.
According to the article,
"Classroom Laptops Can Be Both Useful Tool and High-Tech Distraction," some law
schools are having to block Internet access in classrooms now, after just spending
millions of dollars equipping those same classrooms for Internet access.
Why? Because the students are
doing too much Web surfing, emailing, and electronic poker and solitaire playing
while they're supposed to be paying attention.
Helllllllllo! What have I been
saying for years? Computers do not belong in the classroom unless they are
under the direct control of the teacher. They interfere with concentration,
focusing, listening, thinking, reasoning and reflection. They belong in a media
center with other resources that you turn to when it's time.
Machines do not deserve center
stage. People do.
A pretty good case could be made
that it is the fault of educators who have fallen for so many educational fads
– like computers in the classroom -- that so many kids can't pay attention in
school for very long. It probably has a lot to do with the ADHD epidemic.
Computers and "progressive" ideas
about whole language learning to read by guessing, and "child-centered
education" with its emphasis on the process rather than a traditional
instruction-based, content-centered philosophy, are wreaking havoc on kids'
ability to read very well or for long, much less to sit still, listen and learn
in school.
What do you think will happen
when there are TV's, computers and all kinds of other educational media
screaming for their focus?
How can a child keep looking
straight forward, at the teacher, when the desks are in group clusters, not
rows, and the teacher moves all around the classroom instead of staying up
front?
The computer screen is so
arresting, what the teacher is trying to say becomes almost an annoyance.
Putting a colorful, noisy, ever-changing computer screen in front of a child or
teen in the classroom is about as stupid as having a football game on a
big-screen TV at your dinner party, when your goal is to help people socialize
and build friendships.
In the classroom, computers are
yet another distraction blocking the children's ability to concentrate. The
machines physically block the connection between the teacher and the students.
But more importantly, what's blocked is the crucial interaction between teacher
and student. That's the main thing parents and taxpayers want, and what we're
paying for. Without it, who needs a teacher? We might as well homeschool and
use any number of the new distance-learning services.
Wake up, educators. Computers may
not only be costing us needless millions, degrading the educational process and
dumbing kids down . . . but also making you irrelevant and easing you out of a
job.
If the goal of school is truly to
deliver academic instruction and build good citizenship and character, we
should be seeing wise and judicious use of technology – not this expensive and
destructive free-for-all.
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9/23/05
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