Education and Technology: What’s Wrong With Their Marriage?

1. Education and Technology: What’s Wrong With Their Marriage? Gavriel Salomon University of Haifa, Israel http://construct.haifa.ac.il/~gsalomon/new/

3. "[F]ragile knowledge, which means that students do not remember, understand or use actively much of what they have supposedly learned; and poor thinking, which means that students do not think very well with what they know" (Perkins, 1992, p. 20).

6. The future holds many promises for the growth of internet education....[S]oon it seems that actually "going" to class will not be necessary. All of the knowledge needed for a particular course may be stored on a web page... no need for the traditional classroom-style teaching, since it could all be done on-line. … Anything could be possible through the web…The horizons are endless for internet education (Schnitzler, 2001, http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~schnitzk/Home6.html).

7. Becker & Lovitz, 2000. http://www.sri.com/policy/designkt/beckerp.pdf

8. The possibilities of using this thing poorly so outweigh the chance of using it well, it makes people like us, who are fundamentally optimistic about computers, very reticent. Sherry Turkle

9. Reasons for the Disappointment The Technological Paradox: Trivialization MisguidedResearch: Not learning from past The technocentric focus: Omnipotency

10. Three naive beliefs Knowledge is a function of the accumulation of facts and routines Knowledge and understanding can be transmitted ready-made Students can themselves bridge between theory and practice

12. Becker’s findings

15. A “domesticated” technology that serves “yesterday’s” goals may do no harm, but it does not do anything good either

16. Reasons for the Disappointment The technocentric focus Trivialization Not knowledge but the computer becomes the centerpiece The Technological Paradox:

17. …the role of IT is not to help, deepen, widen or enrich but to replace the school and the teacher. As the tractor did not come to improve the horse so will IT… ensure far improved learning and teaching over the present. Concepts like “the human factor” and “human touch” belong to the past! Sigmond Sheidlinger,

18. The concept of knowledge was understood until now as a noun denoting possession, but now it becomes a verb denoting access. Herbert Simon

19. Information can be accessed but knowledge is constructed. Information is not knowledge.

20. Information and Knowledge • Information is discrete; knowledge is arranged in meaningful mental webs • Information can be transmitted; knowledge needs to be constructed • Information can be without context; Knowledge is always contextualized • Info’ needs clarity; knowledge needs ambiguity • Mastery of info’ is in its reproduction; mastery of knowledge by novel applications

21. Tutorship

22. Learning Community

23. Reasons for the Disappointment The technocentric focus Misguided Research The Technological Paradox: Trivialization Techno- centrism • Horse racing • Traditional criteria

25. 374 Russell, T. (1999). “The No Significant Difference Phenomenon ”. 1999 http://teleeducation.nb.ca/nosignificantdifference/

26. A meta-Analysis to Compare ICT with Classroom Instruction (157 studies, 40,495 students) R.M. Bernard, Y. Lou, & P. C. Abrami, Concordia and Louisiana State Universities 2003 http://concordia.ca/cslp

28. Different media, if they are powerful, serve different rather than the same ends. The greater the difference between the media -- the greater the diversity of outcomes that can be attained.

30. Two Psychological Principles • People learn mainly from what they are doing; but they learn even more from what they are thinkingabout what they are doing (e.g., Brwon & Campione, 1994). • Different media afford different activities, and they, in turn, afford different thoughts about those activities (Salomon & Gardner, 1986)

31. So, quo vadis?

32. My Credo:We should be dealing neither with educational technology nor with technology in education, but with the culture of education in the age of technology.Technology is only the means to realize educational visions.

33. The desired graduate Intelligent Learning Technological Affordances Educational Rationale Useful Employment of Technology

34. The Desired Graduate

35. Decline of criteria for evaluation and judgment • Multiplication of knowledge • Changes of vocations • Unlimited access to information • Technological dominance

36. The Desired Graduate • Independent, mindful decision maker • Skilled life-long-learner • Capable of handling novel complex problems and rapid changes • Is skilled in accessing needed information and integrating it • Has pro-social values and behaviors

37. Intelligent Learning

38. Schooling is not about information. It’s getting kids to think about information. It’s about understanding and knowledge and wisdom Larry Cuban, 1993

39. Technological Affordances

41. Not everything possible is necessarily also desirable Syemour Sarason