Yesterday, I attended a talk with Todd Oppenheimer, a respected journalist and writer. He discussed his latest book that delves into how technology has failed America's schools. It deeply disturbed me to hear our teachers placing emphasis on whiz-bang powerpoint presentations over deep understanding of our core societal beliefs. I think we have a few "areas of improvement" (aka "things that are broken") that need to be worked on.

First and foremost are the schools and teachers. Buying into the idea of technology being a savior or even just the idea of technology being a tool to be mastered is just plain wrong. I admit, I once felt this way, but it was ages ago. Simply teaching a student a different way to express their ideas is not going to help them get ahead in their lives or careers. I feel our schools had this thought:

"Let's put the computers on every desk and wire them to the Internet (whatever that means). The computers and the wires will give them an advantage and they'll learn better and faster...why, the computer will practically teach them for us!"

This leads me into the second area of improvement: technology companies. I'm not sure how education divisions in a particular company works (I should probably bother the Education Consulting group in Microsoft), but I know they have business goals which frequently do not align with what's best for our schools. I understand that most of these folks are trying to do their darnedest to improve the quality of education, but balancinig that with the need to make cold, hard cash it difficult at best in my opinion.

Basically, we've come to the point where we have 5% of schools/teachers/students using technology effectively to increase their ability to solve problems (most important thing ever, in my opinion), think critically (second most important thing ever), and reason logically (tied for second most important thing ever). The other 95% are doing who knows what (well Todd knows) with their technology. Most are spinning their wheels...trying to figure out why the computer crashes or using very ineffective and thin curricula that try to artifically weave the computing experience into the classroom experience. I am eager to read Todd's book to see what happens when computers arrive in poorer schools like those in Harlem. I have a feeling it's not going to be a good experience for the teachers or the students.

In the end we have to remove the computers from the classroom or relegate them to the status of a "tool" similar to a ruler or protractor rather than an all-knowing, mystical oracle of knowledge with the matrix-esque abiliity to infuse knowledge into our children's brains in a matter of seconds.

In my opinion, classroom learning should focus on the core themes and ideas of the subject. Social studies is social studies, not "how cool is your powerpoint on Congress". By focusing on the technology, we've already lost a generation of students. I feel if we let the students organically incorporate technology in their research and quest for knowledge, they will figure out the stuff on their own. We just need to make the technology accessible. By that, I don't mean put them on desks in front of the kids so that they cannot see their teachers standing in front of the class anymore. We should allow access to the computers while the students research and do their homework, not in-class as a distraction from subject matter. In middle-class neighborhoods, this is less of an issue. A few computers in the school library staffed with a knowledgeable librarian (aka "sifter of knowledge") is sufficient in my opinion. In poorer schools, we may find that accesible technology becomes an issue. Most students will not have sufficient computing access at home or even a friend's home so there will need to be a communal "tech pod" where students can not only use technology, but learn to care about their studies in their time away from school. I realize this is a lot to ask in poorer areas since some of them are so far gone from this realm of possibility, but it's one of the ways to get back on track.

For the area where we as technology professionals can affect change, we would need to work hand in hand with schools and take on the role of educator rather than technology provider. We would need to be more responsible in our pitch to the schools and focus on their needs rather than trying to make a buck. I'm sure we already incorporate a lot of things into making technology better for our students but I think there needs to be focus. Focusing on what the students need to know and what they need to come out of the school being able to do would help point tech folks in the right direction. This is all, of course, if we can get the millions of teachers, administrators, students, and technology companies on the same page to begin with.