by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

I ran across a little news item about corporate donations to education, but that is not what bothers me. What bothers me is this offhand line, and I quote, "The partnerships are growing even in the absence of proof that computers measurably improve learning among younger students." Twenty years ago, I was an early advocate of computer assisted learning. I was sure that it would be the greatest thing in education since the introduction of printed texts. Now, I'm not so sure. Some very smart people have tried to develop educational computer programs for kids, and, for the most part, they don't seem to have made the difference they were expected to make.

It appears that computers are great for high school and college students. They are a great research tool and they make the composition of papers (even when those papers are not purchased from an online term paper company) much easier than in the past. (I can remember how difficult typing a 2000 word report was when I was in high school.) However, kids in the preschool and primary grades get little advantage, it seems, from having computers available to them. I am disappointed. But, then, I am also one of the people who saw Kubrick/Clarke's vision of 2001 as eminently reasonable. So, maybe it isn't that computers can't be a strong learning tool for that age group. Perhaps, like our space program, computerized education has suffered from a form of benign neglect. Maybe, some day in the not so distant future, we will once again walk on the moon...and our kids will do a great deal of their learning via computers.

Just a thought.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. ©El Zorro Viejo 2002-2005