It might be a strange title for a post coming from a Director of Academic Technology but...I just read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, "Technology not the panacea for education", written by Todd Oppenheimer, author of The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology. I found it using my education Alltop page, a free news aggregation website.
Oppenheimer is on target for the most part. Throwing technology at a school will not improve education, teaching technology skills will not prepare our students for the challenges that lay ahead. He calls the use of technology, "Education's WMD".
He goes on to quote a report from Information Technology Association of America on what students to learn in school.
Know something about the problems that need to be solved.
The concept is absolutely correct. Students do not need to be taught how to use a word processor or for schools to purchase expensive content management systems. That being said, technology CAN help students learn how to solve challenging problems and support the writing and reasoning skills Oppenheimer so strongly emphasizes in his article.
While technology is not a panacea and must be used with curriculum designed to support
writing and reasoning; reliable work habits; the capacity for concentration and face-to-face communication; a sense of history, cultural anthropology...[and] higher math and science
it can provide a wealth of knowledge and opportunities that will develop and support these skills.
Money for education should be invested in building or redesigning schools and curriculum that can develop the skills Oppenheimer mentions. But, we would be foolish not to utilize the free or inexpensive technologies like Alltop, Skype, or Delicious, to only name a few that will only bolster that learning process.
Photo Credit: Matthew Clark Photography & Design
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