Monday, November 12, 2007
Article Assesment #3
Tools for the Mind
By Mary Burns
Overview:
In this article, Mary Burns hits the nail on the head with her assessment of how technology is misused in schools in terms of potential. She opens with a revision from about ten years ago when people were singing the song of limitless opportunities that computers and technology will bring to schools. However, her tune changes soon afterward. It is obvious to her that due to a few variables, computers are used for low level applications, and along with lower level student thinking as well. She points out how to solve this issue and that one must truly commit to technology and computers as fine tools that can help students achieve higher levels of thinking and learning.
Specific of high and low levels of application and thinking are given to help illustrate her perspective. Programs such as word, publisher, and power point are explained as simple programs that do not encourage the higher levels of learning. The programs power point and publisher are highly visual, and encourage the use of incomplete sentences in the format. They encourage organization of ideas, but language skills are forgotten in order to fit the information on a slide in a visually appealing way. These programs also encourage more development of the cut and paste culture which inhibits learning at all levels.
Suggested programs are spreadsheets and databases which can be used in ways that students truly get a chance to develop important, higher level skills. These are also programs which help construction of content for a full grasp of that which is learned rather than simply presenting the material as computers have been used for so long.
One problem is that teachers themselves do not have proper competence in these programs or a sense of how to fully use them. Teachers must focus on instruction, curriculum and assessment and use computers and technology as a tool to teach what they need to teach, not solely as "gimics" to make their content more exciting.
Reference Points:
Classrooms rarely use spreadsheets or databases, which are conceptually and technically more difficult. (50)
Power point does not lead students to delve deeply into the writing process or wrestle with complex and conflicting conceptual information. (50)
Students use the internet as an electronic textbook…and use is intellectually passive. (50)
Databases are rarely used for analytic purposes because of their difficulty. (51)
Professional development should focus on core areas of teaching…once teachers have a solid base in these areas, they can begin incorporating technology. (53)
Response:
I admire this article for its authenticity to the reality of these issues. Technology is pushed and encouraged in many schools, but rarely are the benefits fully realized. She points out the pitfalls of the system and offers some, but not many solutions to the problem. Most importantly, I feel that their needs to be the correct attitude toward computers and technology. These things are tools to be used to better learn the content. Technology must also be encouraged by the teachers and not just the administration and districts. This means that teachers need to be open to learning themselves in order to better use the technology as it develops. If not, then computers will only be used for information gathering (credible or not) and to cut and paste. In these cases, computers work against student thinking and learning. In the end, it is pointed out that we still do not know how much potential and benefits can be received from computer use, and that we will not know until a greater, and more focused commitment is given to its implementation. This is something that is not easy to accomplish.
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