Posted by Gabriel C on 8/12/2011, 9:33 am
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Think of a classroom, today, opening up their text books and notepads; students with pencils gripped eager to learn and absorb knowledge. In this classroom, however, there is only a dusty chalk board a slide ruler, and an abacus as teaching tools. By the way, the class is a high school Calculus course. Sounds ridiculous, huh? Can you imagine what schools would look like if zero technological advancement were introduced into the profession? It would not be as successful.
Larry Cuban, a Stanford professor, is explained in the article as advocating for the technological dollars to be spent instead on proven advancements. These advancements, such as documented text books or, in the case of the subject I teach, Singapore Math or something of that nature, are not the solution. It would be wrong to divest from educational technology, just like it was a losing idea for the German’s to divest from nuclear warfare during the Second World War. The big explosive payoff from technology will come. Putting the best and brightest on the task of making technology payoff in the classroom is something the United States can and must do.
Technology will not be easily adapted to the classroom. Teachers, more so than their relatively advanced students, will be difficult to train. This is a serious constraint. However, with changes to credentialing requirements and with growth of both successful applications and technologically advanced means for sharing success, the student achievement will grow with renewed investment in the educational application of technology. With our schools struggling and our national competitive edge diminishing U.S. schools need ed-tech more than ever.
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