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Wednesday, February 02, 2000
By Karen MacPherson, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
As a sound bite, it sounds like good news: America's schools have an average of one computer for every 5.7 students, an improvement from 20 students per computer in 1990.
But educators are finding that it's one thing to have computers and Internet access, and quite another to make good use of these technological tools.
First of all, many of those school computers are old and out of date.
Then there's the problem of teacher training. A new Education Week survey showed that nearly 60 percent of teachers have had five hours or less of computer instruction; 27 percent have no training at all.
And finally, because research is just beginning, no one is really sure whether computers are worth the investment of money, time and training.
Initial studies conducted with students in West Virginia and Idaho demonstrate that language, math and reading have improved through classroom technology. But more research needs to be done, said Linda Roberts, head of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology.
"We ought to be much more focused on making sure that the way in which we use the tools empowers learning, helps kids acquire technical skills, and enables them to achieve ever more challenging content," she said.
But William L. Rukeyser, a former top education official in California, is a critic of what's called "ed tech" in schools.
Rukeyser said the E-rate program has just fueled the academic craze for computers. "There's almost an evangelical spirit - 'Hallelujah, bring on the computers!' "
"Essentially we are playing a zero-sum game," Rukeyser said in a recent telephone interview. "For everyone thing we add, we have to subtract something else."