Questions about learning with tech…a start

…technology integration in schools is not easy to achieve, no matter how much evidence we have that it can help learning. It’s also important to integrate technology appropriately, as critics are quick to point out that computers, besides being expensive, can harm young children who sit for hours in front of them instead of being engaged in the “real world” (Alliance for Childhood, 2000). So what is known about how people learn and the role technology may play in their learning? How might that knowledge provide guidelines for appropriate uses of technology that can help students and teachers?

Questions to ponder from the ERIC Digest: How People Learn (and What Technology Might Have To Do with It).

***added April 1, 2008***

Elona pointed me toward this great article by Mark Prensky called Turning On the Lights The last section does offer some answers to the questions posed above. Give it a read….

Prensky, M. (2008) Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65 (6), 40-45.

5 Comments

  • @ Sharen, I’m stealing that quote.

  • Tracy says:

    Thanks for this quote Sharen. I hadn’t heard of him before now!

  • Sharen says:

    Hi Tracy,
    Do you know Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977)? …about whom it says in a biographical sketch: “Hutchins also warns that education has shifted its focus from being educational to custodial. He charges that many schools have become no more than baby-sitting services for adolescents, protecting them from the tumultuous world of youth.”
    Here is the quote of his which caught my eye.
    “Education is not to reform students or amuse them or make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.”

  • Tracy says:

    Thank you Elona! I’ve found the article and edited my original post to include a link to it.

  • Tracy,
    There’s an excellent article in March issue of Educational Leadership -Turning On the Light. by Marc Prensky that answers some of your questions.

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