I saw this on Digg – Wireless PCs Motivate Students Says Study – Technology News by TechWeb
Students are self-directed and get highly personalized instruction with their own computers and Internet access, according to The Center for Research in Education Policy at the University of Memphis, which released results of a report on the subject at the National Educational Computing Conference Thursday.
Hmmm – I don’t want to sound like a educational technology skeptic, but there is so much information missing from this article and, sadly, there is no link to the original research article. I did notice, however, that the students in this study were given HP notebooks and – what a surprise – HP is the founding sponsor of the One to One Institute, and was involved in the Michigan Freedom to Learn program that was the subject of the study.
I really do believe that computer technology offers tremendous opportunities for learning, but the efficacy of such programs seem tainted when they seem to be driven by hardware manufacturers selling a model of technology integration to educators. I don’t know all the details, but that seems to be what is happening in many of the one to one or laptop based learning programs. To be completely honest about my involvement in these programs, I was a division computer coordinator during the implementation of a SunRay thin-client rollout in my school division, and I enthusiastically cheered the party line about using the technology. But all the real innovations that I’ve seen since then (we switched over to thin clients in 2000) have been initiated by teachers, students, administrators and other division personnel (we have been fortunate to have a very knowledgable technology leader in our school division). Real innovation has distinctly not come from hardware or software companies looking for new market segments, which is what most “one-to-one learning” programs seem to be.
I don’t want to denigrate the hardware and software companies, since they will obviously have their role to play in the technology-driven innovation in education, but they should be assisting and following, not leading the change. Do we need an educational cluetrain manifesto to educate corporations about the needs of learners and teachers?
2 Comments
“Do we need an educational cluetrain manifesto to educate corporations about the needs of learners and teachers?”
Well said! I would be really surprised if such a document would sway the hardware/profit oriented corporate machine, or even the actions of school divisions. My perception in education(and I hope this is rare) is that it is still much easier to focus on the tangible elements such as thin clients and web programs than to delve into the question of learner’s needs/curriculum/professional development. I am inclined to call it “applied behavioural technology”, where we take the latest gadgetry, apply it to a group of students and wait for whatever the desired results are attained. If there are results (and you are right in questioning the research in this instance) shout it from the rooftops! Praise to HP!
I am never swayed by corporation “wonder gadgets”. Unless of course we are talking about Apple. I never question Apple.
Thanks for the comment, Shaun, and I apologize for delays in responding – summer vacation, y’know. I agree that focus is being diverted towards the tangible elements, data-driven decision making being the most dominant example. What we end up with is a mechanistic view of education and learning, instead of what I would deem a more humanistic or phenomenological view of education and learning. I suspect, but at this point this is more of a gut feeling than anything else, that this is a result of a changing perspective on the role of education within society – hmm, I think I feel a bigger blog post coming!
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