WWW: Beyond the Basics

6. Education

6.6 Conclusions

We have pursued several themes throughout this chapter, and now is a good time to reflect and recap on the content. First, educational technology has been an uneasy fit in the classroom, giving rise to the phenomenon of technology refusal. A large part of the problem lies in the fact that the creators of educational technology are far more familiar and interested in the technology part of the pairing, and this leads to a product that ill-meets the needs of its users, the educators. Computer scientists need greater awareness of the milieu of educators, and, more importantly a much deeper insight into pedagogical approaches more in-tune with technology. Knowledge of the former will lead to adequate educational technology; understanding of the latter will result in exceptional classroom applications.

We have seen that the shadow of didacticism permeates much of the educational technology applications in typical use today. The reasons for this are largely due to its entrenched status in the classroom, in colleges of education, and in the extant experience of the educational technology developer (the computer scientist). Didacticism does not fit well with the open-ended, flexible nature of the computer, and so, as the computer moves towards a central point within the curriculum, didacticism will likely have to move aside to accommodate it. Thus, it may be that technology will force the issue in the ongoing issue of constructivism versus didacticism, giving the upper hand to the former which, for a multitude of reasons already examined, is a more natural partner for technology. Such a move toward constructivism will not come about without a radical re-assessment of what we want our educational system to achieve, and what its ultimate goals and requirements are: it requires real reform.

We have seen that only modest technological resources are required to use the Internet effectively in the curriculum, and that such use is not highly intrusive in that it can be used as a natural and dynamic extension of the traditional available information resources. The thing to note is that the computer is merely one more tool, and not a replacement for the educator (which educational technology ofen mistakenly tries to be). Educators are necessary, and, in fact, are the classroom's most valuable resource. The computer should support the educator, not the other way around.

To be truly effective, our schools should reflect the society around them. The Internet and technology increasingly permeate this society, and so it is likely that they will wend their way further into the classroom and, importantly, the curriculum as time goes on. Along with this will come an inevitable increased awareness and training. Although the telephone and the automobile are taken for granted today by people who have grown up in a world surrounded by them, we must recall that these technologies were once foreign and novel just two or three generations ago. Just as those technologies were assimilated into the everyday lives of successive generations through ubiquity, so, too, will the computer. (Already it is commonplace to see WWW URLs in television and print advertisements, indicating the penetration of the Internet into the everyday world.) This will doubtless be reflected in the classroom, with an inevitable ubiquitous use of technology across the curriculum. Indeed, the drive towards increased K-12 networking is already afoot, a testament to the importance of the Internet in our present and future; a recognition of the information age upon us.

Finally, the dawn of an information age requires students to be equipped to exist in an information-driven world. A key skill is the ability to forage successfully for information and then, most importantly, to evaluate it critically. Critical literacy, then, must become a big goal in our curricula, and, as already seen, the Internet and the WWW provide an excellent medium in which to cultivate and hone this skill.

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Copyright © 1996 Paul Mather, All Rights Reserved

Paul Mather <paul@cs.vt.edu>
Last modified: Sun Nov 24 23:21:29 1996