Actually, I only wish that schools would value the sort of
experimentation you have in mind. Instead, what I see is a culture that
has valued the use of clay, and has just discovered marble, attempting to
insist that students use the tools of clay to work with marble.
> Let's be honest here. Most people jumping on the anti-tech bandwagon are not
> high-minded like Neil Postman. They've got other agendas that don't relate
> to individual creativity or expression or reflection, but to collectively
> moving masses of students through a system efficiently, and tagging them by
> ability level efficiently.
This statement alone caused me to seriously reconsider my position
on computers in school. Sometimes I see them as a terrible waste of money
because students within classrooms all to often use them in lieu of paper
and pencil tasks - fill in the blank, skinnerian learning machine
activities.
> I think that we all can see that computers are not a panacea,
All too often I do find those espousing the use of computers in
school as saying just that. Example: Roger C. Shank - "Engines for
education" (1995), p. 67. "Although the Progressive movement acknowledged
the importance of students controlling their own learning, it had no way
to create an environment that would allow such self-management to occur.
The computer has the power to change all this."
This statement, for me, reveals a terrible epistemological failure
- a terrible misunderstanding of how institutions are constructed as
demonstrated by CHAT. I'm really not sure - foucaultian that I am - that
power is exercised in artifacts.
> Anyway, touched my buttons, as you can see...Thanks for listening.
Actually, I really enjoyed what you wrote and have had to
reevaluate my own understandings of computers in school and come to a
different understanding.... one that more positively sees their place in
school and begins to looks for avenues that support larger changes in
school activities. So, thank you!
phillip