Who really benefits from putting high-tech gadgets in classrooms?

[n2doc]

By Michael Hiltzik
February 4, 2012

Something sounded familiar last week when I heard U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski make a huge pitch for infusing digital technology into America's classrooms.

Every schoolchild should have a laptop, they said. Because in the near future, textbooks will be a thing of the past.


Where had I heard that before? So I did a bit of research, and found it. The quote I recalled was, "Books will soon be obsolete in the schools.... Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years."

The revolutionary technology being heralded in that statement wasn't the Internet or the laptop, but the motion picture. The year was 1913, and the speaker, Thomas Edison, was referring to the prospect of replacing book learning with instruction via the moving image.

He was talking through his hat then, every bit as much as Duncan and Genachowski are talking through theirs now.

more
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120205,0,639053.column

[notadmblnd]

1. And guess who is going to sell them much of the software

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Prior post yesterday in GD

Last edited Mon Feb 6, 2012, 08:31 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002270284

[GSAteacher_deb]

3. Who benefits? Bill Gates n/t

[I am the OP]

4. I am studying for my teaching certificate.

They (the textbooks trying to condition me) suggest that even early childhood kids can use computers. I am 100% against it for this age group!