‘Children can do more than you think’

The “Technology and Education” sessions have always been among the most popular at Digital World. Everyone is concerned about education. Everyone has personal experience (good and bad) with existing educational systems. Most adults have (or expect to have) children of their own who will go through the educational system. Nearly everyone recognizes that the country faces a crisis in education. Most Digital World attendees would like to believe that new technologies can somehow make a difference.

This year’s panel was charged with addressing precisely this question: “Can technology make a difference?” The panel consisted of five people with diverse backgrounds and experiences:

• Helen Kelly, a teacher and one of the principals involved in a five-year pilot program that had involved 11,000 randomly selected children in four “disadvantaged” Los Angeles schools.
• Mary Fallon, communications manager for Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT).
• Steve Krashen, professor of education and linguistics at USC and consultant to a number of school systems.
• Rick Lippert, senior educational consultant with Computer Curriculum Corporation (CCC), a division of Simon & Schuster, one of the world’s largest suppliers of computer-based instruction packages.
• Jim Blinn, CalTech professor, well-known computer graphics pioneer and director of Project Mathematics.

ON THE THRESHOLD

The panel was clearly split on the question of how technology can/should be best applied, and on what impact it can have on education. However, three of the five members argued very convincingly that we are on the threshold of being able to use new technology in ways that can make a big difference in what students learn, and how they learn it.

Blinn’s Project Mathematics is essentially packaging creative teaching (of mathematics) on videotape, making extensive use of simple computer graphics. The tapes are used by teachers as a supplement to their own presentations. Because VCRs are inexpensive and ubiquitous (and because production of a linear video is less expensive than production of a computer-based interactive title), Project Mathematics is able to reach a great many classrooms very inexpensively. It now has 20,000 tapes in the field — plus an uncounted number of copies. (Schools are encouraged to make their own copies.)

Think of this as a means of giving broad distribution to really good teacher presentations.

The orthodox approach. CCC’s Interactive Learning Systems (ILS) represent what has become the “orthodox” approach to computer-assisted instruction: networks of PCs and Macs running CCC interactive programs that provide students with individualized instruction and drill. CCC claims that it has 30,000 student histories that show that 20 minutes a day of interactive instruction for one school year can yield a two-year increase in math skills and a year-and-a-half increase in reading skills.

Think of this as a means of computer-assisted study, drill and follow-up instruction.

Although the other three panelists had no problems with what Blinn is doing, they disagreed strongly with the sort of traditional computer-aided instruction approach represented by ILS. Krashen said that even the gains reported may be short-lived.

HOW WE LEARN

There are, Krashen said, two hypotheses about how we learn. The “study” hypothesis says that we learn by deliberately and consciously trying to put new knowledge into our heads. The “problem-solving” hypothesis states that we learn as a by-product of solving problems. In Krashen’s view, “the first hypothesis is false and the second is true. In other words, study does not work very well.” He backed up this argument with convincing examples of the amazing kinds of things we all learn in everyday life.

Both Kelly and Fallon agreed with this analysis. In Kelly’s project, students had used computers as tools for doing projects (and had mastered computer operating systems, networking, building HyperCard stacks and video production in the process). The children loved coming to school, and, in fact, would come to school during off-time and vacations just to work on their projects.

MONEY IS A CRITICAL ISSUE

Fallon cited examples of what can be done. The most comprehensive of these has been a four-year project monitored by researchers at Ohio State University. High school students who had access to a rich mix of technology to pursue collaborative, problem-based projects showed dramatic increases in eight abilities identified by the U.S. Department of Labor as critical for tomorrow’s workplace: dynamic exploration and presentation of information, experimentation and problem solving, social awareness and confidence, effective communication, computer use, independence, expertness and collaboration and a positive orientation toward the future.

No one thinks that technology is a panacea. Everyone agrees that it should be used as part of a comprehensive program that includes teacher training, parent involvement, and, most of all, more money. However, the consensus among at least the majority of the panelists is that problem-based learning can make a big difference, and that technology is best applied in making problem-based learning a reality.

Jonathan Seybold