Computers and Schooling

Introduction: Educational Technology from Different Points of View

Why should the introduction and use of any new technology in schools be a source of controversy? Are the controversies inspired by the introduction of computers at school different in kind (or only degree) from those inspired in other professions by the use of computers (e.g. in medicine or architecture)?

From Larry Cuban's analysis in Teachers and Machines, there appears to be something especially robust about the resistance of schools and classrooms to new technologies. Indeed, in an article written after both the personal computer and the internet had become inevitable facts of educational life, he argued again for the durability of the traditional classroom -- the article was titled "Computers Meet Classroom: Classroom Wins." Most recently, in his 2001 book Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom, Cuban extends his analysis to higher education and reports similar finds in a chapter on Stanford titled "New Technologies in Old Universities."

Whether or not one is discouraged/annoyed by Cuban's findings and arguments, his work reveals the way truths about the introduction and use of technology in education depend in the perspective from which the questions and issues are raised. In CS92 we have the task of making ourselves aware of the perspectives of different disciplines (e.g. the history/philosophy of education and cognitive psychology as well as the various sectors of CS); the task is pleasurable for the same reason it's challenging and sometimes infuriating!

This week we're considering computers and education from the point of view of the history of the US school classroom. Next week, we'll consider the "same" issues from the point of view of the philosophy of education. After that we'll see the cognitive science point of view, and after that we'll see how the designer of technology approaches these issues. An overall goal of CS92 is to let you develop your own perspective on these issues, while you get to know the landscape of the edutech "field".

Larry Cuban's Teachers and Machines

We'll continue to discuss the Cuban book with the help of the set of quotations, consider the questions we didn't get to last time:

• What data/result/fact in the book did you find most surprising?
• What data/result/fact in the book do you imagine reflected in the use of computers in schools since 1986?
• What data/result/fact in the book do you imagine not reflected in the use of computers in schools since 1986?
• If you were to study the use of computers in US schools since 1986, what would you look at, measure and/or survey?

and consider some further questions in light of Cuban's chapter on computers, the 1998 Cuban-Pea debate, and Cuban's most recent book:

• What for you have been exemplary classroom experiences, and how do they inform/constrain/shape the best use of computers (or technology generally) in education?
• What for you have been exemplary educational uses of computers and how do they inform/constrain/shape the best use of teachers, classrooms and schools in education?

We'll end the class at 5:10 and let people sign up for their preferred projects.

For next time: Read John Dewey's Experience and Education (1938) for Monday, and Scheffler's "Computers at School?" (1986) for Wednesday. We'll begin the listserv after class today, and you'll receive mail about the project teams early tomorrow. Your TA will then send members of each team the contact information for their sponsoring teacher.