A beginning for our group's topic:Technology and Educational Reform

The author of the class text, David Trend, Welcome to Cyberschool, discusses several technology issues used to promote educational reform. The one that impacted every public school in the United States is Channel One. Trend as well as other authors wonder if there really have been any educational benefits in the long run. Or is it just a good way for advertisers like Nike to market their product. Christopher Whittle's Channel One introduced to K - 12 in exchange for equipment children watch a daily news segment with Pepsi and Nike commercials. Now seen by 40% of U.S. studnets. (Trend, p. 46)

Trend calls computers and instructional technology methods "over-medicating" students. Technology has been seen as the answer to cure poor assessment scores, slower performing schools, etc. "...these early proponents of technologically mediated education saw themselves as progressive reformers, not unlike the current promoters of computerized learning." (David Trend, Welcome to Cyberschool, p. 2)

Another item that has gotten lots of media attention laptop program where school systems spent lots of money to get laptops for all the students. But the general consensus is that they are not being used because the students were not trained adequately to use them. See the Microsoft Education site where the Anytime, Anywhere Learning Program is presented: http://microsoft.com/education/default.asp?ID=AALThoughtleadership.

Jane Healy in her book Failure To Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds–for Better and Worse, sites the following considerations: federal government provides funding to wire classrooms to the Internet, software companies market educational programs even for preschoolers, and school administrators cut funding in other areas to make room for new computers.

Alabama's governor has his own special educational reform package. Here is a quote from this week's Weekly Report: " We have an obligation to Alabama's children to ensure they have the opportunity to reach their God-given potential through a quality education, and teacher testing helps us reach that goal. For the first time in two decades, Alabama public school teachers will be tested for reading, writing and math competency. Teacher testing is finally out of the courtrooms and back in the classrooms where it belongs. Shortly after I was sworn in as governor, I initiated talks with parties to attempt to settle a 1981 lawsuit that challenged the fairness of teacher testing in Alabama. Compromise negotiations led to the establishment of a three-member monitoring committee to oversee the fairness of a skills test for future teachers. At today's meeting of the Alabama State Board of Education, I joined board members in approving the Alabama Prospective Teacher Test. Beginning in January 2003, teachers seeking employment in any of Alabama's 1,471 public schools must pass each section of the test as a precondition for applying for certification. Under the terms of the settlement, someone who fails the test may still be eligible for certification if he or she has a 2.5 grade point average on a 4.0 scale and passes a remediation course in the failed subject area." The full report can be found here

"Durng the 1990s, not only did schools come to operate like corporations, but the content of what we taught becan to change to accommodate industry needs." (Trend, page 145) He also says that throughtout the 80s the gap widened between rick and poor schools, creating a divide that intensified the corporate invastion. (page 47) This goes along with an article I read that discusses how the University of Phoenix is approaching distance education like a corporation. A corporation whose utimate goal is profits. Read it in University Business, Margaret Littman, September 2002. Is this a part of educational reform?

Trend on pages 46 and 47 talks about the past few decades and how the blame for students falling behind is on the lack of federal funding which lead to schools using companies money in return for commercials and trying to run universities like corporations.

Technology and Literacy: Trend quotes Bolt and Crawford in The Digital Divide "When you put computer literacy before literacy, the only thing you are doing is turning out people who do not have a complete facility with either." (Trend, page 70)

Our Team's Debate Topic - Computers for Prescholl and elementary age children.

Back to our Team's Index Page

References:
David Trend. (2001). Welcome to Cyberschool. Rowman and Littlefield Puboishers, Inc.

Healy, J.M. (1998). Failure to connect: How computers affect our children’s minds-for better and worse. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Anytime, Anywhere Learning. Retrieved October 2, 2002 from http://microsoft.com/education/default.asp?ID=AALThoughtleadership

Alabma Governor Don Seigelman's Weekly Report. Retrieved October 10, 2002 from href="http://www.governorpress.state.al.us/pr-2002-10-10-teacher-testing.asp.