There's been some buzz on one of my lists about Todd Oppenheimer, who appeared on Talk of the Nation on NPR to talk about his new book The Flickering Mind, which I hear is highly critical of the huge push towards technology in education.
Apparently, FM is an extension of the work (and a relatively unqualified extension of the perspective) outlined in this '97 article from the Atlantic (thanks to Nick Carbone for the link) called "The Computer Delusion."
Honestly, there's something to what Oppenheimer has to say--there are all sorts of unimaginative and unproductive ways to use computers, just as there have always been classrooms that are little more than holding pens. The difference, according to Oppenheimer, is that we've channelled $70 billiion dollars (during the 90s) away from other endeavors in order to computerize our classrooms, and this in the face of a dearth of material that demonstrates the effectiveness of such an investment. In the NPR segment, Oppenheimer's most convincing point for me concerned the "customer" or "gee whiz" mentality associated with technology, a mentality that is just as operative in higher ed as it is in the schools Oppenheimer describes. And that "gee whiz" provides support for computers without providing equal support for maintenance, infrastructure, training, expertise. Nor are we especially good in this country at recognizing quality music or art instruction, and "luxury" programs like those are where a fair chunk of the money for technology comes from.
Most instructive to me, though, was to read some of the reviews of Oppenheimer's work, including this one from Jamie McKenzie. McKenzie takes Oppenheimer to task for a number of things, including his representation of a particular school, the way he generalizes from fairly thin anecdotal observation, and the interest he appears to have in humiliating educators (citing them by name when the norm is anonymity). When he responds to callers during the NPR segment, Oppenheimer is nothing if not crafty in his qualifications. He consistently selects the worst possible examples, and compares them to decent or good examples of "non-technology-based" education. I'm left with the impression that much of his "research" is decontextualized, overgeneralized, and picking on relatively easy targets.
That being said, I work in a field that hasn't made his target much more difficult to hit. It is difficult to make the case that technology improves writing skills, although I'd probably argue that the people (like Oppenheimer) who demand that we make that case typically fail to acknowledge the ways that technology has shifted what we understand by the phrase "writing skills" or "literacy," for that matter. At the very least, he raises serious issues for any of us involved with educational technology--serious enough that I suspect he'll quickly join the ranks of critics like Birkerts and Stoll, providing a new foil for those of whose "delusion" he critiques...
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