Following the Yellow Brick Road.

The debate about technology in education is a red herring, Ms. Newman argues. The way in which we choose to use various technological tools is based on what we believe about learning in the first place - all the important questions are really about curriculum and instruction. DO YOU remember The Wizard of Oz? The wonderful wizard who could do everything? At least that's what Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion believed. The Scarecrow wanted the great Oz to give him a brain. The Woodman wanted to ask for a heart. The Lion wanted courage, and Dorothy wanted the wizard to send her and Toto back to Kansas. So the four friends set off down the yellow brick road through the dark, scary forest and the deadly poppy field toward the Emerald City, never suspecting what they would find when they came face to face with Oz the Terrible himself. Well, when it comes to information technology and education, it seems to me that we're a lot like Dorothy and her companions, following the yellow brick road and hoping that Oz will grant our impossible wishes. Read any recent government policy paper on education, and it looks as if people believe that information technology will cure all of education's ills: "It facilitates the development of communication, decision-making, and problem-solving abilities; facilitates students' formulation of complex questions as they manipulate information to discover patterns and relationships, and [as they] reach conclusions in the pursuit of knowledge. . . ."1 This particular curriculum document promises even more: "[Information technology] allows [students] to develop and maintain a competitive advantage in the Global Information Economy."2 Heady stuff, indeed. However, information technology can't produce marvelous outcomes if the classroom environment doesn't provide opportunities for communication, decision making, and genuine problem solving to occur. The electronic resources available today do permit communication with the world. But if we use these new tools no better than we've used more traditional instructional technologies, we're guaranteed to be disappointed. That's because, like more traditional information technologies (such as books, pencils and paper, overhead projectors, blackboards, slide and film projectors, telephones, fax machines, and so on), computers and Internet connections are only means for achieving some end. What matters ultimately is the experience that learners have and what they make of that experience. There are several aspects to the issue of marrying information technology and education. For a start, in spite of what many people believe, nothing about information technology is neutral - all software packages have biases about learning built into them. A number of tools I've worked with recently, specifically designed for use in education settings, clearly embody a 'transmission' model of learning.3 For example, take the courseware package I was supposed to use to "deliver" a web-based graduate course. The deeply embedded transmission bias inherent in several components of this software created a host of frustrations for me since my teaching flows from an "interpretive" or "constructivist" approach.4 What sort of problems does this courseware set up for me? To begin with, the design of the web-authoring tools assumes that teaching is a unidirectional activity - from teacher to learners. As teacher, I can edit messages submitted to a "forum," but students don't have access to one another's submissions, so no collaborative writing can take place. While it's possible to submit lengthy reflections, you can see only the first 10 lines of a message you're replying to, so forget about a thoughtful sustained discussion of substantive issues. The website is set up for students to submit assignments to the instructor via an "evaluation" module. In other words, no communal dialogue here. Quite clearly, the courseware makes a definite distinction between "chitchat" and "real" work. …