EducationIT

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 * ITGS Exercise - Education and IT
 * Issued:** 5 Mar 08
 * Submit:**


 * Tasks:**

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 * 1) From your experience, identify and explain at least 3 benefits technology brings to the classroom. (3 marks)
 * 2) Now read the article and explain 3 reasons why IT and computers in particular have had such a difficult time being successfully used in classroom instruction. (6 marks)
 * 3) Describe any social and ethical reasons why the use of computers in education is either positive or negative.

In 1922 Thomas Edison predicted that "the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and. . . in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of text books." Twenty-three years later, in 1945, William Levenson, the director of the Cleveland public schools' radio station, claimed that "the time may come when a portable radio receiver will be as common in the classroom as is the blackboard." Forty years after that the noted psychologist B.P. Skinner, referring to the first days of his "teaching machines," in the late 1950s and early 1960s, wrote, "I was soon saying that, with the help of teaching machines and programmed instruction, students could learn twice as much in the same time and with the same effort as in a standard classroom." Ten years after Skinner's recollections were published, President Bill Clinton campaigned for "a bridge to the twenty-first century. . . where computers are as much a part of the classroom as blackboards." Clinton was not alone in his enthusiasm for a program estimated to cost somewhere between $40 billion and $100 billion over the next five years. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, talking about computers to the Republican National Committee early in 1997, said, "We could do so much to make education available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, that people could literally have a whole different attitude toward learning." Clinton 's vision of computerized classrooms arose partly out of the findings of the presidential task force-thirty-six leaders from industry, education, and several interest groups who have guided the Administration's push to get computers into the schools. The report of the task force, "Connecting K-12 Schools to the Information Superhighway" (produced by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.), begins by citing numerous studies that have apparently proved that computers enhance student achievement significantly. One "meta-analysis" (a study that reviews other studies-in this case 130 of them) reported that computers had improved performance in "a wide range of subjects. including language arts, maths, social studies and science." Another found improved organization and focus in students' writing. A third cited twice the normal gains in math skills. Several schools boasted of greatly improved attendance.
 * Schools should not emphasize computers in the classroom. **
 * UNQUESTIONED CLAIMS FOR TECHNOLOGY IN CLASSROOMS **