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PROMISES,
PROMISES
Introduction...
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For
more than a century, educational technology has been promising to
revolutionize learning. Film projectors, radio, television, teaching
machines and the earliest computers all came into schools with guarantees
that "education will never be the same." Yet this promise has
never been kept.
But today's high-speed computer technology is different. For one thing,
it's not "just for schools." Rather, the rest of society
is using the computer as its central tool for communicating and creating
knowledge. Technology in the new millennium is exploding. Why aren't
schools keeping up? |
 Our
schools have a lot of computers--more than 4,000,000 of them--but
unfortunately most schools use computers in limited capacities- keeping
track of attendance and grades, or for mind-numbing drill-and-practice
exercises "Promises, Promises" presents explanations for this shortsightedness:
narrow, rigid thinking; misguided policies; obsolete buildings; and
inflexible schedules. |
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But
examples of good practice can be found: classrooms linked in "cyberspace,"
students joining astronauts as they circle the globe, piloting robotic
submarines or photographing the Sahara without ever leaving the classroom.
Unfortunately, relatively few public schools use computers imaginatively,
and the gap between the technology "haves" and the "have nots" seems
to be growing ever wider. |
 Computer
technology may be the last best hope for the public schools. After
all, the computer doesn't know whether you are white, black or brown,
rich or poor, or handicapped. All it recognizes and rewards is accomplishment.
The barriers to success are not insurmountable, and the time to act
is now. |
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Original
Airdate: October, 1994
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