Keeping a Perspective On Computer Technology

Abstract

Thomas Alva Edison was so dazzled by the high technology of his day that he predicted schools would soon replace their textbooks and libraries with moving pictures. Today, one hundred years after the age of Edison, schools still have libraries, students still carry textbooks, and high technology still dazzles Americans and inspires extravagant claims about its uses in educa tion. Computers and the Internet have become to many people today what the moving picture was to Edison: a seductive new invention that is mistakenly believed to have the power to transform education, solve myriad problems of schools, and even replace libraries and textbooks. Movies and videos have indeed become important teaching tools, and in that respect Edison was right, but only incompetent and uncaring teachers use them to replace books. In my experience as a high school history teacher, I have found that, like videos, computers and the Internet are best used in limited ways. Unfortunately, their frequent overuse and misuse create significant problems for teachers and students. These problems can be overcome, but only if we understand the limits as well as the promise of this new technology. Those who expect computers and the Internet to spur radical changes in teaching and learning don't seem to understand that the essential natures of the academic disciplines remain unchanged by them. The task of the historian, and of the student of history, is the same as it was before the computer and before the typewriter and before electricity: to use appropriate evidence to support a valid understanding of the past. If they are used well, computers and the Internet can make elements of that task dramatically more efficient. But when they are used poorly, as they are much of the time, the new technological tools distract students (and teachers) from the real job at hand, making it more difficult for them to muster and maintain the intellectual discipline, focus, and thought that real learning and understanding requires. Computers often present students and teachers with benefits and pitfalls simultaneously. Word processors make it easier for students to learn that effective writing is the result of a process of constant revision and that most papers need to go through several drafts before they are good enough to hand in. Presentation software, such as PowerPoint or Persuasion, can enable exciting teaching and can transform the traditional oral report from an excruciating affair read from scribbled index cards into a dramatic multi-media event. Yet students who use these tools are too often seduced into an inappro priate emphasis on style over substance. Those who write with word processors, and especially those who have access to scanners and color printers, often take significant amounts of time to make their work look good. Their essays are adorned with fancy fonts, scanned photographs, and multi-colored headers, footers, and tide pages. Students probably add these extras because computers make it possible and because it is fun. Often the results are impressive: the papers look professional. But the hard work of creating a valid thesis, supporting it with appropriate evidence, and communicating clearly in English is often not especially fun, and is unaffected by color