‘EVERY CLASS Needs Computer, Jeffco Panel Says,” read a Rocky Mountain News headline. Coast to coast the latest fad in public-education “reform” is technology—mostly computers, but also fiber optics and video multi-media hardware. No grant proposal, no model-school outline sees the light of day without detailing how it approach will replace the teacher’s desk with “an Electronic Teaching Center”; “make extensive use of computers, databases, and networks”; reduce staff costs by “reconfiguring how teachers are used in the classroom”; or use “computer, multi-media, and interactive video technologies in virtually every activity students undertake.”
The use of new technologies in education breaks down into three distinct areas: 1) information retrieval and communication; 2) the teaching of mathematical and scientific concepts; and 3) the enhancement of the teaching and learning process in general— e.g., IBM’s Writing to Read program for children in the early grades.
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