Reading Analysis # 2 - T&C Chapter 5

     I took interest in chapter 5 in Tinkering Toward Utopia because it goes along so well with what we learned about  in Dr. Jones' educational technology class. Just like we learned from Dr. Jones, technology has never completely transformed education. Yes, educational leaders thought it would, but the machine has never replaced the teacher. It also hasn't completely changed the way teachers teach. As Tyack and Cuban said, "teachers have regularly used technologies to enhance their regular instruction but rarely to transform their teaching." As Cathy emphasized below, there was an ongoing theme in this chapter about how teachers were "unwilling to climb onto the new bandwagon" with new technologies. The authors also emphasize that teachers actually have used many new technologies in the classroom, but people forget that they were at one time "new". Examples include the pen, paper, calculators and blackboards. Everything we see in the classroom was once a new technology. Today, the main technology being used is the computer. I thought the statistics on computer use in public schools was very interesting. "The number of students per computer decreased from 125 in 1981 to 14 in 1993." I'm sure the numbers are even lower today. Tyack and Cuban say this happened because educational leaders wanted students to be prepared for the world when they got out of school. Without knowing basic computer skills, they wouldn't be prepared to enter the workforce. I believe the computer has great potential for educating students, but will it ever be able to replace the one-on-one teaching a school teacher can give his or her students?