Alan Pritchard (1)

One opens a book of this title with great expectations expecting to find great ideas about the use of technology and high-level learning. Well, as it turns out, the author has tested a number of software packages available on the Internet with actual classroom teachers and watched the teaching method used by the teacher, the responses of the students, and the results. Most of the packages are of the kind that kids are set busy on while the teacher is doing something else – a kind of substitute teaching or at least some coaching by the teacher as individuals or small groups interact. The results are predictable. Some students enjoy the packages, others don’t. Occasionally, the teacher assesses the result, but not always. Our author wants these packages to fit into the latest theoretical findings of the benefits of technology in education and is trying to fit them into constructivist principles. It doesn’t quite happen. It doesn’t quite happen because these are side events, not the main attraction. Supplementary, not central. And, there is no mention of a technology specialist or a teacher librarian anywhere in the vicinity. One presumes a classroom with a few computers and programs that tend kids when something else is happening with rest of the class. Our hopes are dashed with the potential of this kind of technology. No mention of web 2.0 applications. So, pass this one by.… (meer)