Some additions to the notes for Week 1:

Be sure you understand the why "inhenrently polititcal technologies" unavoidably have their anti-democratic and power centrailizing effects. Note also in chapter three a seeming lack of concern among even well educated people have about such changes in society (see pp50-51).

Be sure you understand how technologies can "settle" open social issues, and how they do so by increasing the power of one side of a conflict/struggle and reducing the power of the other until they concede.

Be sure you understand the how Winner is attempting to build upon and synthesize the social determinist ways of thinking (ex. Marx) and technological determinist ways of thinking (ex. Mumford, Ellul) with his approach and while addressing the weaknesses of each of those older

Technology and Education

The "Technology Literacy" article by The Alliance For Childhood makes the point that far too much technlogy education involves simply teaching students to be operators of a soon to be obsolete technology. That in and of itself is wasteful.

But such teaching leaves students without knowing how the technology basically works, which hinders their ability to apply their learning more generally and makes them more dependent on experts when they are faced with unexpected problems they might otherwise be able to solve themselves.

Nor do they learn what standards of proper ethical behavior apply when using the technology, a scary thing given the things networked computers are capable of such as the propogation of computer viruses, stealing money, or invading the privacy of others.

Nor do they learn the context of the technology: how it was shaped by certain people for certain reasons and how the technology then in turn shapes the lives of other people as it is used. This makes them unable to stand up for their interests and those they care about when a technologis going to worsen their qaulity of life or take away some of their freedom.

The article then suggests several reforms for solving these problems. Learn them.

Consider the following questions:

Are you persuaded that those proposed reforms should all be adopted?

If not, which of them do you oppose and why?

Do you think any of them are likely to be widely adopted? If not, why not?

Does the pressure on curriculums and inflexibility of educational sysytems built around performance on standardized tests have something to do with such reforms not being adopted?

What sorts of groups might benefit from people being more dependendent on experts and less able to stand up for their rights against bad technology?

Do you see any overlap between such groups and the biggest supporters of standardized testing?

The Debate Between Papert and Rozak

Both Papert and Rozak have a strong dislike for the status quo in American K-12 education.

But each have largely opposed ideas about whether adding computing technology to the process will improve it.

The nature of their disagreement is over whether computers can be designed to used in a way which unlocks students' currently unused potential for learning. This proably has something to do with Rozak's claiming that computers can only teach procedural thinking and act as a distraction from focused learning and quiet reflection on what one has learned. Papert probably thinks (compared with Rozak) that "proceduaral thinking" has more scope for creativity by the student using it and more useful applications to a lot of different disciplines.

On top of this Papert and Rozak also seem to disagree about whether teachers and administrators are willing or able to make the necessary changes in how School operates in order to adopt computers in a way that really will unlock students' potential to learn. Rozak is a lot more skeptical that adding computers will ever be able to reform the behavior of teachers and administrators.

Figure out what evidence Papet and Rozak give, and what fundamental assumptions about reality seem to be behind their disagreement.

If you are an education major. How do these two arguments compare or contrast with your own views of technology in education?

Optional articles:

In the optional article about the Earth Toy, Talbot discusses the Toy being an instance of a larger problem he sees with education today: knowing about things through abstract representations of real things rather than trying to get students to understand the real thing itself, within its own real context and connections to other things. Talbot also makes the claim that it is impossible to love an abstraction of the environment, in order to for a real emotional attachment the student must first go out and be part of the environment that the student experiences daily, and appreciate it with all of their senses.

Computers by their nature can only provide graphical, textual, or numerical abstractions of reality. In any such abstract representation, a great deal of information will be omitted, no matter how good the intentions of the creator of that abstraction.  Specifically the context of the thing represented is always left out. Other things, which in the real world have connections to the thing represented, are very often omitted from the representation. As a result, the real-world connection between those two things is thereby concealed from the audience of the representation.

Sometimes, of course, the creator of representation can consciously decide to include a particular object that provides context for the thing represented and to define the relationship between the two. But that is the exception that proved the rule imposed by the nature of computers, how software is developed, and to an extent representations of reality generally.

One critique of the excessive use of technology is that people can (as the creator of the Earth Toy did) get absorbed in the endless possibilities of what powers a technology can give people, and get absorbed in making those possibilities a reality. In this case that possibility is the Earth Toy itself and the capacities for the manipulation and retrieval of geographical, ecological, and social infomation it represents. But like many technologies of information retrieval use of such a device serves to put the student using it in the role of a controller, or an information manipulator instead of the more positive roles of member, participant, and partner. Talbot would argue that the latter roles are better to teach with regard to the Earth, and many other things as well.

The problem is that people who get absorbed in these kinds of questions don’t ask other, very important, questions about the side effects of using the technology or what economists would call the “opportunity cost”: what must be given up in order to acquire the technology.

An example of the latter would include questions like:

· Given that schools have a fixed total budget, what is likely to get cut in order for schools to buy this piece of technology? (textbooks? teacher salaries? building maintenance?)·

· Is adopting the technology going to do more to help students than the loss of the things that had to be cut in order to pay for the technology?

I’d now like to give some examples of various groups that can be considered winners and losers as a result of adopting two different technologies in education: computers and standardized testing. This may prove useful to people trying to identify winners and losers of other technologies

Computers in Education
“Winners” (groups that benefit)	“Losers” (groups that are worse off)
Companies selling the computers and software the schools buy. Employers who want to hire workers with computer skills for lower wages than they have to pay currently. (Technology education makes technology skills in the labor market less scarce.) Students who later find jobs they might not find otherwise because of their computer skills. Administrators who look like they are doing something to give students marketable computer skills. Students who learn more effectively as a result of (good as opposed to bad) computer-aided teaching either because of its inherent strengths. Students who are engaged and energized by the opportunities to use computers in a ways that give them more independence and more opportunity for self-direction and creativity.	Students who want or need to learn subjects that get cut from the curriculum in order to pay for computer education. Teachers who want to teach those subjects that have their funding cut. Students who don’t learn subjects as well when the subject is taught through computers and software. Students who develop a mindset of dependence on computers in order to learn. Teachers who must take additional time to learn new ways of teaching using computers. Exising workers who will have to take more technology training to stay ahead of the graduation students entering the workforce. That or the workers will suffer falling wages as their skill becomes more plentiful in the market and less competition exists for workers with technology skills businesses need. Students, like the one in Monke’s article Why Information is Not Enough, who as a result of a high-tech education find themselves unable to make decisions about what they ought to do with all those technology and information processing skills. Students who, as a result of such education, feel increasingly severed from their community, and lacking in purpose. People who are worse off because of the later actions and inaction of those students when they grow up to be directionless people isolated from their community.

Increased Use Of Standardized Testing in Education
“Winners” (groups that benefit)	“Losers” (groups that are worse off)
Companies selling the tests that the school systems buy. Students that tend to do better on standardized tests than other measures of what they have learned. Politicians who at least appear to be doing something to improve the quality of education by making teachers and schools more accountable via testing. Students who receive individual attention directed to improving their weaknesses in areas the test covers because of their low scores. Students who attain basic literacy and math skills they might not have attained otherwise because of the effect of standardized testing forcing schools to work harder to teach these skills to all students. These students may later find jobs they might not have otherwise because they gain these skills. Employers who would like a larger pool of workers to hire from that have adequate basic language and math skills. Teachers and Administrators at schools with high or at least quickly rising test scores. (People can make their own judgments about the extent to which this group is responsible for the scores of the students)	Students that tend to do worse on standardized tests than other measures of what they have learned. For standardized tests that have a racial bias against minorities, minority students may have their performance underestimated. Students who need to learn information that gets cut from the curriculum in order to maximize students’ performance on standardized tests. Note that the very nature of standardized testing prevents it from testing for any but recall of facts and simple skills. There is no standardized test that measures critical thinking. Teachers who want to teach those subjects that get cut to change the curriculum to emphasize what the standardized tests measure. Teachers and Students who must take time out of teaching/learning other subjects in order for the students to be taught test taking skills specific to standardized tests: a skill which will be largely useless later in life. Teachers who have a high proportion of students with low and un-improving standardized test scores. Administrators at schools with low and un-improving test scores. (People can make their own judgments about the extent to which these groups are responsible for the scores of the students)

© 2004 by Shayne Weyker