The book we are covering this week, Teaching with Technology, deals with the experiment that the Apple corporation conducted in the late 80s called ACOT (Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow). It covers extensively both the ideas of the implementations of Apples in select classrooms and the result of the experiment.

In my view, this is the most hands-on reading that we have done this semester, and I have learned a lot about how computers and education may interact. All groups from the lowest level kindergarten to higher level education at Brown should be able to find something useful in the reading.

The book deals with many themes that we have discussed in class such as progressive versus traditional education, the value of learning through collaboration, the importance of children's active interest in the material and creative ways of presenting it, and the ability of computers to redesign well-accepted and practiced curricula, among others. It also raises issues which we have brought up, but not discussed extensively in class such as, most importantly, the interaction between the teachers, the computers and the students and the ways in which that revolutionizes the accepted dynamics of education. We see examples of teachers both embracing and rejecting the onslaught of computers in their educational environment depending on a number of factors including their age, experience, and willingness to embrace change.

It is clear that the book embraces the ACOT program as stellarly successful despite the setbacks that it experienced. One telling statistic is that "although half of the students who joined ACOT as freshmen had not planned to go to college, 90% of them graduated and went on to college compared with 15% of the non-ACOT graduates" (47). Computers did something without a doubt to improve the learning environment in these schools.

In class tomorrow, we will discuss the following topics (although I do not plan to limit discussion to these, they are simply intended as a starting springboard):

• An important issue to consider is the teachers and their ability to adapt to the software we are writing. Considering the five stages the authors mention (entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention) how can we maximize the utility of our software?
• Much of the book's discussion deals with the complete jump from "real school" to computer-based learning (which was the intention of the program), how much, if anything, of the authors' discussion is relevant to us, since we are writing software which is intended as complimentary to the classroom's traditional learning environment?
• We talked for the past few classes about traditional versus new ways of representing old/new information. How was it presented in ACOT? Was each method a success or a failure?
• A problem can always arise with students knowing more than teachers. Some teachers are acceptant of that while others aren't. How do we transcend this problem with our software?
• Cheating is always an issue. Is it pertinent for our subject matter and in general, should it be a concern for software developers and if so, to what extent?

These questions are not meant to be limiting and please feel free to bring up other important points which I did not think of. There is a lot that the 5 chapters dealt with and it is impossible to talk about all in the time we have allotted. At the end of our discussion, I plan to have each group to talk specifically about its project within the realms of our class discussion. Please take the time to look at the above questions and think about how they apply to your project. It can be very productive for us all to hear each group's input and opinion on the subject matter with which the book deals.

See you all in class.
-Alex