761 week twelve-April 14, 2004 - ONLINE
Follow the steps below about reading and reviewing some online resources. Share your thoughts by responding as described in the last step.
Read about Critical Views of Technology in Schools
1. Read the review by T. A. Callister Jr. of Larry Cuban’s book “Oversold & Underused: Computers in the Classroom”, (PDF) Teacher’s College Record Teachers College Record, Date Published: 1/10/2002 ID Number: 10868 at http://www.tcrecord.org
Focus on his three-page summary of Cuban’s points, rather than his opinion of Cuban’s book. This summary can serve as an overview of the points Cuban writes out in his book, which is the first bulleted link below. Skim the book to flesh out any understandings you don’t yet fully realize about Cuban’s points.
- Book: Oversold & Underused: Computers in the Classroom (the entire book as a pdf) by Larry Cuban
- Also Helpful: Interview with Larry Cuban from Technology & Learning magazine, June 15, 2000
- Also Helpful: Computers Meet Classroom: Classroom Wins by Larry Cuban (PDF) Teachers College Record Volume 95 Number 2, 1993, p. 185-210 ID Number: 82, Date Accessed: 4/4/2004 at http://www.tcrecord.org
2. Read the Fool's Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood : Published by the Alliance for Children . The entire report is available online. Use the left-side navigation bar to first go to the Executive Summary to get an overview of the report---note the age range of children they are focused upon in this report. Second and third, look over chapters 2 and 4, Fourth, read chapter 6, noting the seven recommendations at the end of the chapter.
Apply these Ideas
The two resources/readings and exercise below stands in for discussion/classwork in lieu of our face-to-face class meetings while I’m away at the American Educational Research Association conference.
3. In a threaded discussion post in WebCT (put your comment under the thread “critical view”), apply the conceptual framework of the eTIPS to the analyze the merits of the critical views presented in reading # 1 and 2 . (You can review the eTIPS here )
First, imagine a school setting where all six eTIPs were true. (That is, the technology supported the learning outcomes and added value to teaching and learning and aided assessment; and the technology access was adequate and well-supported and teachers had adequate opportunity to learn about technology and collaborated with colleagues around its use.) If the eTIPs accurately described a school setting’s technology integration and implementation, how many of arguments presented by Cuban and the Alliance for Children (AFC) would be countered? Discuss your opinion of which eTIPs “cover” Cuban’s and then the AFC’s criticisms about the use of technology in schools, or with young children, respectively. Based upon your analysis and your opinion of how hard those eTIPs are to put into place, conclude your post by stating your evaluation of how concerned educators should be about the criticisms Cuban and the AFC bring up. ALSO, respond to another person’s post. Just for fun why don’t you take the opposite opinion they offer (whether it is your own or not) and try to argue for the other side.