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In an interesting monograph published in 1996–one has to go back that far since now the world is utterly brainwashed with edtech messages, a mathematics professor presents about 12 reasons why high tech does not improve education–and in fact probably hinders it.  The rest of can be found in The Mathematical Intelligencer here. Two brief citations follow: 

Harriet K. Cuffaro of the Bank Street College of Education comments on computer painting versus ordinary painting:

“…in `painting’ via the computer, the experience is reduced and limited by eliminating the fluid, liquid nature of paint. In this painting there are no…opportunities to become involved in the process of learning how to create shades of colors; gauging the amount of paint to be mixed; experimenting with and discovering the effects of overlaying colors; understanding the relationship of brush, paint, and paper, the effects achieved by rotating the brush and varying pressure, or how one gains control of or incorporates those unexpected, unintended drips…. There is an absence of texture, of smell, a lessening of qualitative associations with the experience of painting… computer graphics have a `stamped-out,’ standardized, `painting-by-numbers’ quality… there is a quality of sameness in appearance… individuality is flattened by the parameters of the program. [15, p. 25]”

More generally, according to Douglas Sloan of Columbia Teachers College:

“For the healthy development of growing children especially, the importance of an environment rich in sensory experience — color, sound, smell, movement, texture, a direct acquantance with nature, and so forth — cannot be too strongly emphasized….will the computer in education only further impoverish and stunt the sensory experience so necessary to the health and full rationality of the human individual and society?… What is the effect of the flat, two-dimensional, visual, and externally supplied image, and of the lifeless though florid colors of the viewing screen, on the development of the young child’s own inner capacity to bring to birth living, mobile, creative images of his[/her] own? [15, pp. 5,8]”

These are astute remarks but the worst part of the computer obsession is that 1) money goes to buying computers and teacher salaries don’t increase; and 2) most kids today learn more about computers on their own than they do in school.

Thus, as technophile educators sponsor workshops, conferences and events to deliberate on the minutiae of technology and education, they fail to see that technology companies have ‘brainwashed’ agenda setters in education as well as teachers that high tech is good, and that’s where one should spend one’s money.  Meanwhile, we have a crisis in teaching–largely as a result of poor pay–or one could say our culture has successfully made losers (the teachers) feel like winners (we have all these toys to play with).  

This entry was posted on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Politics, high school, technology, web log. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.