Is change really possible???
Reading Papert’s article “Technology in Schools; To Support the System or Render it Obsolete” made me think about a comment made by one of my university colleges regarding the Principal at the school he taught practicum at… technology was not promoted there because the Principal was not fond of technology or, I’m assuming, change…
Papert asks if it is possible to invent the educational airplane… to go from the school of yesterday to the school of tomorrow… and asks if this change will improve the educational system or render it obsolete.
Oppenheimer in Papert believes there is no evidence that computers improve Learning and Teaching and Papert agrees with him. After our discussion in our Professional Learning Portfolio tutorial, I tend to agree with them also. If technology is oinly used to improve the teaching of yesterday, such as putting our text books online and continuing to teach from them, then the computer has not improved our teaching or our learning. If the use of technology is not to improve the teaching and learning strategies, to improve our pedagogy or to engage the students any differently then when I was at school, then we may as well go back to the hard copy text books, pens and a black board.
Papert believes that kids will be the force for change – as their technological learning increases, so must ours as teachers and that one day, the meaning of the word “school” will change and will no longer be the place for learning… is he trying to imply that a computer will be our new school or maybe our mobile phone???
Change… it’s inevitable… but is the change always implimented effectively?
