At our main site we ask the question "Are the highly rhetorical claims related to the importance of education technology for improving the quality of learning / teaching appropriate and valid in the Indonesian context? Or in any context?"

At this site we provide the opportunity to openly discuss Articles, Abstracts, and Quotations from contemporary Education Technology literature. I will raise issues that I hope are at least thought provoking, and you will have the opportunity to respond, rebuff, or add your own comments, opinions, or new issues related to the topic.

Today's article is "Our nation is at a turning point."

"Our nation is at a turning point. We know that the world in which our education system was created - the industrial world of the 19th and early 20th centuries - no longer exists. Today we live in a technology-driven global marketplace where ideas and innovation outperform muscle and machine. In an age of digital content and global communications, we must build an education system that meets the new demands of our time. Technology can help us create schools where every child has the opportunity to succeed, while we work to close the achievement gap and address the economic and workforce needs of the future."

"The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) adds even more urgency to the challenge of determining the proper role of technology in education. To meet NCLB's goal of having every child performing at grade level by 2014, we need to be able to reach and teach every student. Our teachers need tools to help them design and deliver lessons that reflect a 21st century context and engage and inspire student creativity, while educators assess and monitor individual student performance and customize educational services based on that data."
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology

This piece of writing serves to prove that if you are writing about education technology anything will be accepted. We seem to be condemned forever to the terminology Educational Technology if the U.S. Department of Education uses it.

The first thing that came to mind as I read this was:

"Those who place their faith in technology to solve the problems of education should look more deeply into the needs of children. The renewal of education requires personal attention to students from good teachers and active parents, strongly supported by their communities. It requires commitment to developmentally appropriate education and attention to the full range of children's real low-tech needs - physical, emotional, and social, as well as cognitive."

"Computers pose serious health hazards to children. The risks include repetitive stress injuries, eyestrain, obesity, social isolation, and, for some, long-term physical, emotional, or intellectual developmental damage. Our children, the Surgeon General warns, are the most sedentary generation ever. Will they thrive spending even more time staring at screens?" Ref: Fool's Gold

From media reports the U.S. Government is highly concerned about obesity. If I am not wrong, the U.S. currently leads the world with the highest rates of obesity, and especially amongst children. However, at the same time (above) they are advocating highly sedentary education systems that can surely only lead to increased problems with obesity amongst our young.

Re: "Our teachers need tools to help them design and deliver lessons that reflect a 21st century context and engage and inspire student creativity"

Aren't the best tools contextual learning strategies where students are highly active during the learning process? Instead of highly passive learning systems where they just stare at computer screens? Surely the best tool for inspiring student creativity is a creative teacher, right?

Do they also learn their social skills, and general life-skills from the computer as well?

Re: "the industrial world of the 19th and early 20th centuries - no longer exists"

Somebody should tell all the millions of factory workers around the world not to go to work tomorrow! Is it ok if the workers in the computer factories go to work, otherwise nobody will have a job? Including you!

Re: "Today we live in a technology-driven global marketplace where ideas and innovation outperform muscle and machine."

Is it really a "technology-driven" world, or is it a technology-business-driven world we live in? Are technology businesses telling us what we need and how to plan and implement education? For whose benefit???

The implementation of teknologi in the field of education requires careful integration into a balanced master development plan that addresses all aspects of education development (not a project approach). Often public announcements that appear in our media related to technology in the education arena appear to fail to consider curent research and experience in the general world of education. Specific cases of technology in education seem to be taken as general solutions to education issues.

Of course we must search for creative solutions, however we must also learn from the general pool of world experiences so that we don't replicate the failures experienced in other countries.

Teacher-based education where the welfare and abilities of the teachers are satisfactory, and the schools are in good condition, with a curriculum that meets the needs of the students, and is 'well balanced' (includes many forms of skills training including technology), that is implemented using contextual learning is the solution for preparing our children for the challenges of the future.

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Created 8 October, 2008
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