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Danger! Take Large Step! The High-Cost of Incrementalism
Provocative new keynote!

Program Description
An incremental approach to classroom computer use has been slow to produce educational benefits. A number of current trends in educational technology, including: webquests, portals, PDAs and lists of tech skills, will be explored to determine if such interventions serve as distractions and costly detours or improve the learning environment.

Session Description
An incremental approach to classroom computer use has been slow to produce educational benefits. A number of current trends in educational technology, including: webquests, portals, PDAs and efforts to delineate tech skills for the new century, will be investigated to determine if such interventions serve as distractions and costly detours or improve the learning environment. An over-emphasis on ICT limits the computer's potential as an intellectual laboratory and vehicle for self-expression.

While jumping on bandwagons may be distracting, the policies and practices implemented by poorly supervised network managers are making computers virtually impossible to use by classroom teachers. Teachers report extreme frustration with computer reliability and functionality when they are really describing problems created by an over-reliance on the local network and Internet. Ironically, this frustration is in-service of a passive curricular-centric approach to computer use. Teachers' ability to support more progressive practices, such as project-based learning, is marginalized by the demands of keeping networked computers operational. Like the Internet, the low-level informational aspect of PowerPoint presentations emphasize product, often a dubious one, at the expense of intellectually-rich and creatively expressive uses of the computer. Gary will demonstrate how less cautious technology use can help bridge the imagination gap and create productive contexts for learning, while engaging teachers and investing wisely.

Additional details
This presentation will make the case for rethinking the TCO of networking, the educational costs of an over-reliance on the Internet and reevaluating the structure of learning networks given the existence of new technology.

  • Explore concept of Total Cost of Dependency and how this impacts on education and budgetary decision-making.
  • Discuss the educational costs of net dependency.
  • Design more efficient, lower-cost learning networks based on emerging technology
  • Get personnel-related support costs under control
  • Maximize investment despite decreasing technology budgets
  • Advocate a zero-based approach to network planning

The speaker will introduce a new concept, the total cost of dependency, an educational computing variable that may doom our efforts regardless of our intentions and implementation strategies. Leadership failures exacerbated by school networking will make schools less relevant and inspire fewer computer-using teachers. The policies and practices implemented by poorly supervised network managers are making computers virtually impossible to use by classroom teachers. The result of this leadership gap is a colossal waste of money and lack of productive resources for learners. TCO does not account adequately for over-promising and under-delivering

Teachers report extreme frustration with computer reliability and functionality when they are really describing problems created by an over-reliance on the local network and Internet. Ironically, this frustration is in-service of a passive curricular-centric approach to computer use. Teachers' ability to support more progressive practices, such as project-based learning, are marginalized by the demands of keeping networked computers working. Like the Internet, the low-level informational aspect of PowerPoint presentations emphasize product, albeit a dubious one, at the expense of intellectually-rich and creatively expressive uses of the computer.

From Sydney to the South Bronx, complications from network fever have left administrators lightheaded and put many a school on life-support. This isn't an affliction cured by additional professional development; nor is it the merely the result of a generational shift. Investing unprecedented sums of money on bandwidth, servers and network personnel without common sense and a clear understanding of how networks work will create incurable complications for schools. The installation, implementation and maintenance of educational networks could be the number one challenge facing contemporary school leaders. Innovations such as Rendezvous, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and peer-to-peer networking require us to redesign the learning network. We must rethink everything.

Some schools are less educationally effective since the installation of a network. Fears related to the democratization of knowledge, power and expertise causes schools to respond reflexively in order to maintain the status quo.

The future of computing is not a server-client, but rather something more peer-to-peer, yet schools are investing billions on the central command model. Teachers and students have expectations about how networks behave and are constantly frustrated by needless obstacles created by non-educators. The bandwidth fetish has created paralysis and a vision of the future in which computers are passive content delivery vehicles reinforcing undesirable instructional practices.

This session will also review the research of Edward Tufte on the Cognitive Style of PowerPoint and review the cost benefit ration of PowerPoint production to the actual learning value inherent in such an activity.

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