From Eduwiki

In the early 80's, predictions of computers reshaping how schools will be organized, how teachers will teach, and how students will learn were abundant. This predication was stronger with the advent of inexpensive desk-top machines and the promise of each student interacting with a personal computer. These claims came with its critics. Would the computer be an item that could change the educational world as the automotive, telephone, and television changed our everyday life?
The author Larry Cuban, offers the following set of questions that probe into the enthusiasm for classroom computers. The first three questions are drawn from research on the spread of other techonological innovations. Question 4 is rarely asked by policy makers or researchers, yet it is fundamental to the making of school and classroom policy.
1. What is the nature of the innovation?
2. How is it being introduced?
3. Who are the users, and how much are the machines used?
4. Should computers be used in classrooms?

The Rise of Computers in the Classroom

Larry Cuban raises various opinions and information with regards to the use of computers in the classroom from the chapter entitled “The Promise of the Computer”. The chapter begins with two different quotes that give opinions with regards to how the use of computers in schools could be a great addition to the school system or how they could be detrimental to the school system. In the early 1980’s there was great enthusiasm and excitement centered on the age of the computer, and this excitement was started with the media. When the age of computers came to fruition, many aspects of what was believed to be the innovations of computers were not as they were predicted. Programs used in schools to help students in English, art, social studies, music, and foreign language studies were inadequate and because of their weakened quality teachers have not been using the computers as what was hoped. Over the past few decades there has been growing concern as to the low number of technicians, engineers, and mathematicians that have been produced from schools. In addition, many parents wanted their children to be proficient in computers and so there was a sudden urge for more computers in school. This required more teachers to attend workshops to learn the computers so that they could teach the students how to use the computers.

Contents 1 WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE INNOVATION? 2 HOW IS THE INNOVATION BEING INTRODUCED? 3 WHO ARE THE USERS, AND HOW MUCH ARE THE MACHINES USED? 4 SHOULD COMPUTERS BE USED IN CLASSROOMS? 4.1 Cost-Effectivenes of Computers Used in Instruction 4.2 Increased Mechanization of Teaching 4.3 Impact on Children 4.3.1 What Can Students Learn from Computerized Lessons? 4.3.2 What Kinds of Learning Are Most Important to Children?

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE INNOVATION?

The computer has some unique features with supplementing and transforming classroom content and skills.

• Computers can display an electronic chalkboard for practice of essential skills.
• Computers can lead children to understand how the mind works in solving problems.
• Computers have the ability to capture students' interest.
• Some supporters claim that students that learn with computers will have enhanced self-esteem, feeling of competence, and control.
• Computers can be versatile with the various levels of students' learning.
• There are hardware and software issues. Desk-top computers are coming down in price. Not all subjects have suitable software. The costs to develop these suitable software is still very high.

HOW IS THE INNOVATION BEING INTRODUCED?

• Growing concern for the United States losing its grip on markets drove corporate officials to examine public schools and to join lawmakers in correcting what came to be viewed as a national problem: the inefficiency of the U.S. schools in producing sufficient numbers of engineers, mathematicians, technicians, and workers flexible enough to survice in a rapidly changing workplace. May states, mandated stiffer graduation requirements that included computer literacy.
• Parents were fearful for their children. They felt that their childern would be behind in college and the job market with their lack of computer literacy. Parents urged school boards to purchase computer labs and some parents even donated computers to schools.
• Individuals with strong computer backgrounds supported computer literacy.
• Substantial number of teachers across the U.S. supported computer literacy. Teachers that initially did not support computers in the classroom received increased pressure from policy makers to use computers.
  • Teachers that taught math and science expressed higher interest in using computers.
  • Admminstrators, hearing the voice of parents, school board, and district offices, are still purchasing machines. The number of teachers using machines compared to the number of machines being purchased is still very low.

WHO ARE THE USERS, AND HOW MUCH ARE THE MACHINES USED?

• Teachers and administrators are the primary users.
  • They use the computer to store, process, and retrieve information about attendance, scheduling, grades, and inventories.
  • Classroom uses of simulations, writing, and tutoring are the less-used options.
• Elementary-school teachers
  • Use drill software in skill subjects and writing programs.
• Secondary schools
  • A computer lab with twenty or more computers and schedule students for courses in programming or ditrict-devised version sof computer literacy.
• Math and science teachers
  • Math and science teachers use computers more often than English, social studies, and foreign language teachers.

What have the studies showed?

• The use of teachers is still low compared to the number of computers being purchased by schools. John Hopkins University calculated that almost 5 million students averaged nine hours each of computer time. They reported that computers went unused more than half of the school day in three out of every four schools.

• Rand researchers studies 60 elementary and seconday school teachers that were identified as exemplary users of classroom computers in 25 California school districts. They reported that students spent less than an hour a week receiving insturction via classroom computers.
• John Hopkins found that only one or two teachers regularly used computers. They found that it all depended on where the computer was located.
• NEA questionaire confirmed the John Hopkins findings.

These numbers are echoing familiar tones from earlier efforts of film and video. This low number of use could be due to the obstacles of inaccessible hardware, inappropriate software, and untrained teachers.

Are teachers to blame?

• Limited teacher use of new technology may be due to organizational constraints built into classrooms and schools as workplaces.
• Using one computer in a classroom as a student tutor, with a library software, is the teacher using the machine as a learning center for occasional student play. Not being used as a learning instrument.
• There should be a gradual computer introduction into classrooms for instructional and administrative use. This would help expose the teacher to the computer. Teachers would have to let go of the typical style of teaching that they have become use to. They would need to use the computer as a problem-solving tool, to learn procedural reasoning, and to encourage students to work alone to learn new content and skills.

There are different models of teaching and learning with computers.

• In Pittsburgh, a math class is constructed to have studnets control the technology and teachers act as knowledgeable facilitators.
• In New York, teachers have been trained to use 15 or more computers with students. These findings are rare, but hopeful for the future use of computers in the classroom.

SHOULD COMPUTERS BE USED IN CLASSROOMS?

People are not asking whether the computers should be used in the classroom, they are only asking how can the computers be used. So this section addresses the should the computers be used in a classroom. Uncertain as to how the machine should be used, policy makers ask the following 5 questions:
1. Should we provide every students with access to a computer for a minimal time period, to insure some degree of literacy?
2. Should all students be exposed to programming languages? If so, which languages?
3. Should we pursue CAI?
4. Should every school have 10 to 15 computers in a laboratory that is accessible to classes and individual students?
5. Should the number of machines differ for lower and upper grade schools?
With these questions and many more, the top officials do not stop asking the "how" questions long enough to address the issue of should computers be used in classrooms?
For a complete education with computers to be possible the "should" questions needs to be asked and answered. Larry Cuban poses the following three questions in the pursuit of answering "Should computers be used in classrooms?"

1. Cost-effectiveness of computers used in instruction
2. Increased mechanization of teacher
3. Impact upon children

Cost-Effectivenes of Computers Used in Instruction

In all of the enthusiasm for classroom computers, an assumption that has gone largely unchallenged is that these machines, with appropriate programs, could teach students knowledge and skills both efficiently and effectively. Economist Henry Levin tested this assumption. He choose four common tools policy makers use to improve math and reading skills: reducing class size, increasing the amount of time devoted to skill instruction, tutoring, and computer-assisted instruction. He created the Cost-Effectiveness Ratio. The following is his findings.

• Students teaching students emerged as far more cost-effective than computer-assisted instruction.
• Computer-assisted instruction was slightly more cost-effective than reducsing class size.
• Increasing the amount of time devoted to math and reading was by far the least cost effective.

Levin is not to convince anyone that hiring older students is the cheaper and better than stocking a computer lab. He wanted to point out that the assumption of computerized instruction is automatically superior to other conventional classroom approaches.

Increased Mechanization of Teaching

Is this option really going to happen?
Converting teaching into a science historically has driven many reformers, researchers, and policy makers toward embracing numerous innovations. 1920's views schools as bureaucracies and teachers as technicians. 1960's had efforts to introduce systematic classroom prodedures and rational teaching methods. 1970's had a growing awareness from the state and federal policy makers that many children left school unfit to read, write, and calculate. There is a surge of popular interest in making schools productive and accountable spurred efforts to train teachers to write precise objectives aimed at producing student results. States mandated testing programs that required teachers to concentrate on the skills that legislators believed were important. School-based and district-directed strategies, that had teachers focused on certain teachng strategies. The periodic surges of interest in introducing video, film, radio, and computers overlap these larger efforts to bureaucratize schooling and raionalize teaching. Promoters believed that these machines gave teachers addtional tools for enhancing productivity. The complex relationships between teachers and students become uncertain in the face of microcomputers. Teachers and students emotional bonds are in question. Students working with computers alone in pairs for long periods of time lose time for direct and sustained contact with teachers. Adult-child ties may unravel as a consequence of the newly developed child-machine liaison. Many teachers may feel that the introduction of machines into classrooms endangers the intangible relationship that teachers and students have. These teacher concerns have been the main component as to the slow mechanization of teaching. The major resistance to converting classrooms into technical enterprises has come from the organizational realities of school and classroom life and the teacher's perspective on what's important to young people to learn.

Impact on Children

No one knows for sure what impact computer instruction has on children. Among teachers, administrators, and researchers, various theories of learning compete for being the best. Their beliefs are working theoretical models that guide decision making regarding how to present content, how to teach skills, how to build student confidence, and a dozen other "hows" of teaching.
Computerized learning is achored in at least two theories: operant conditioning (drill) and information processing (programming). Drill is common and considred by teachers as an important, if not tedious, instructional task. The biggest potential is the area of programming. Children that learn to program will develop analytical thinking skills and procedural reasoning that goes far beyond what teachers do in classrooms now. There is controversy and no evidence support to this thinking (Piaget and Joseph Weizenbaum). A heavy reliance on computers could lead to ignoring other teaching practices. This could leave some children behind.

What Can Students Learn from Computerized Lessons?

Students can learn basic skills from computer-aided instruction. Some claim that computers can teach students more powerful ways of thinking. As stated above there are some concerns with this statement.

What Kinds of Learning Are Most Important to Children?

Collateral learning--absorption of attitudes that accompany the formal lesson--often exceeds the importance of what is taught directly. No body of evidence on collateral learning yet exists to persuade critics or advocates of classroom computers how much more is learned by students beyond the lesson on the screen. There is a question raised with a student using a computer program to park a car and then asked to use blocks. What did she learn from the computer experience? Was it transferred to the block simulation? The computer learning experience is mind rich, but perceptually low. Computer learning is generalized as instrumental reasoning. The major claim to computerized learning is reasoning that is techonical and nonemotional. It has also been expressed that what students get out of computers is the same as what they get from human interaction is both inaccurate and a dangerous thought.