There is a stylized female lament about male sexuality: "It isn't how big
it is, but how you use it." The same sort of critique seems very
appropriate to the use of computers in the schools. There was an
editorial complaint in last Thursday's San Diego Union Tribune about the
misguided addition of computers in the classroom at the expense of
serious educational reform ("It's not the computers - it's the
classroom," by John Tagg.) Hubert Dreyfus and his brother make a more
critical assessment of the three categories that Mike mentions in his
book snippet.
Dreyfus, H. L., & Dreyfus, S. E. (1986). Mind over Machine: The power of
Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer. New York, NY:
The Free Press.
As part of ORCAS (Orinda Computing Associates) we had the assessment
contract for the Hawaii Educational and Research Network (HERN). The
National Science Foundation then asked us to provide concrete positive
outcomes resulting from the introduction of the internet in classrooms .
. . of course at the assessment cost of tens of thousands of dollars. I
dare anyone to show that even in the majority of the thousands of
classrooms, in hundreds of schools, scattered over 5 islands, the
internet has a demonstrable positive effect on learning. Never mind do
it for a few hundred person-hours.
I fear that as educational researchers we are caught into the absurd
fashion of the day. No one asks if desks, tables, aquariums, globes, and
chalkboards (pardon me, whiteboards,) have a positive effect on learning
- totally independent of their context of use. In our evaluation of
HERN, we flat out refused to be sucked into such abstract and empty
assessment - instead we looked at the cultural and historical evolution
of technology into learning settings.
In so far as our glorious leaders and funding sources will let us, we
really need hold close to our tenets of the contextual and historical
basis of learning. As that savvy bit of feminist wisdom reminds us: it
isn't having computers that improve learning, but how you use them.
Peace, Edouard
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: Edouard Lagache, Lecturer :
: Department of Communication (0503) :
: University of California, San Diego :
: 9500 Gilman Drive :
: La Jolla, CA, 92093-0503 Voice: (619) 534-7192 :
: elagache who-is-at netcom.com FAX: (619) 534-7315 :
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: Weinberg's Second Law: :
: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote :
: programs, the first woodpecker that came along would :
: destroy civilization. :
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