Introduction: Questioning the relationship between technology and education
Since the 1980s there has been a great deal of discussion about what role computers should play in American education, and what might be reasonably expected from technology-driven reforms in teaching, learning and schooling. A first question that might be asked, in light of the history of classroom technology discussed by Larry Cuban, is why we assume any technology (be it radio, television, film or the computer) is the sort of thing to which teaching, learning or schooling could/should respond; and, more generally, to what extent teaching, learning and schooling are "technical" phenomena (i.e. phenomena characterized by "technique"). We'll spend the first part of class today on introductions, and ask everyone to speak to this question a bit.
Larry Cuban's Teachers and Machines
We'll discuss the Cuban book with the help of the set of quotations I've prepared, and consider the following questions:
For next time: Read the 4th chapter, "The Promise of the Computer," in Cuban, as well as the 1998 debate between Cuban and Roy Pea at tappedin.org (http://www.tappedin.org/info/teachers/debate.html).