View Content #1800
| Contentid | 1800 |
|---|---|
| Content Type | 1 |
| Title | Book review: The Flickering Mind. The False Promise of Technology |
| Body | I would thoroughly recommend this book as an honest, even-handed, and well-researched indictment of the fleecing of education through technology. Todd Oppenheimer: The Flickering Mind. The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved, 2003. (ISBN 1-4000-6044-3) In this book, Oppenheimer generally maintains that properly trained teachers can do about as well using technology as a regualar teacher can do without technology but that the hype often comes to sell computers and software simply does not normally seem justifiable with subjected to the standards of legitimate education research. The efficacy of the use of the technology is largely dependant not on the technology itself but on the teacher's ability to mangage the use of technology in ways that foster educational growth. He recounts evidence that computer use does not help standardized test scores particularly, that students often become trained to misuse rather than use computers, and that computer technology is of course enormously expensive and diverts from other resources. There is a long chapter on the Accelerated Reader program which is in many schools. His ideas on how education can be saved, on the other hand, are largely derivative of the Waldorff school philosophy. Hands on project learning, in-depth discussions, and other "thinking" activities which he basically sees subverted to a large extent by the fragmented, disconnected, and chaotic use of computers by many typical students. The human touch is clearly more important than the bells and whistles. Sample quote which I like: "We live in an information economy, but I don't believe we live in an information society. People are thinking less than they used to.... We're already in information overload. Now matter how much information the Web can dish out, most people get far more information than they can assimilate anyway.... I used to think technology could help education, but I've come to the inevitible conclusion that what is wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. ... We can put a Web site in every school -- none of this is bad. It's bad only if it lulls us into thinking we're doing something to solve the problem with education." Steve Jobs (Apple Computer co-founder), pg. 52 "All tools have thir prices. A useful strategy is to turn their price into a teaching occasion. The pedagogical goal is to figure out what are the limits of this particular device." Judah Schwartz (professor emeritus in education and Educational Technology, Harvard / MIT), pg. 358 I agree that it is important that people have enough experience with computers to realize what they can and cannot do. Teachers and often people purchasing computers and software simply do not know much about them and are let themselves be convinced by the hype which would lead them to believe that without computers they are going to be hopelessly left behind. Widergren, P. (3 Jul. 2004). Re: TECHNOLOGY IN THE FL CLASSROOM- to be or not to be. Foreign Language Teaching Forum listserv. FLTEACH@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (13 Jul. 2004). |
| Source | Book author: Todd Oppenheimer |
| Inputdate | 2004-07-13 16:46:00 |
| Lastmodifieddate | 2004-07-13 16:46:00 |
| Expdate | Not set |
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| Active | 1 |
| Emailed | 1 |
| Isarchived | 1 |
