With more and more physical work now done by machines, teaching people how to use these devices is a major issue. People need education to run machinery effectively and to make decisions when things don't work. Others still need the education to problem solve and figure out "how to do things better or how to do better things" in the words of Esther Dyson, author of A Design for Living in the Digital Age. The complexities of our society heighten the need for us all to be better educated in a moral sense "in order to make the increasingly complex ethical decisions the digital and eventually the genetic ages will bring", Dyson says.
When Seymour Papert, professor for learning research at MIT, wrote Mindstorms in 1980, he saw computers not only as practical machines to streamline and simplify boring and repetitive tasks, or as machines that could instruct us. He described the computer as the Proteus of machines, its essence being in its universality and its power to stimulate, with the capacity to take on 1,000 forms, serve 1,000 functions and appeal to 1,000 tastes.
Papert had spent the previous decade attempting to turn computers into instruments flexible enough so that children could create for themselves their own set of models that they could assimilate into existing ones. Papert produced another seminal work in 1993 entitled The Children's Machine, Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer. In many ways an elaboration of Mindstorms, it equates the information age with the age of learning, the sheer quantity of learning taking place in the world being many times greater than in the past.
Acknowledging that children across the world "have entered a passionate and enduring love affair with the computer", he goes on to question what lies behind the love affair, and where it is going? He wonders can it be guided into constructive or destructive forms by the older generation, or whether its evolution is already out of our hands. Because he sees the love affair as having an element of possessiveness and an assertion of intellectual identity (children see computers as "theirs", as something belonging to their generation), the evolution may already be well out of our hands, he believes.
Notwithstanding, Papert sees the new technologies as being powerful contributors in the enhancement of learning by creating personal media capable of supporting a wide range of intellectual styles. But most children also have a passionate and enduring love affair with television, and their willingness and eagerness to watch does not mean that the exercise engages their minds in a meaningful way. I believe learning to learn and learning to think are far more important than learning things. After a brief teaching career and a much longer career in computing, I have come to the conclusion that facts are easily acquired along the way, on a need-to-know basis, but are useless if learnt in chunks and out of context. Thinking and problem solving, on the other hand, if practised and fine honed from an early age, are the stuff that will give us the confidence, the curiosity, the imagination and the sheer bravado to tackle any problem, whether it be in the arts or the sciences.
If technology can be used in our education system for the advancement and improvement of thinking skills, then I welcome it enthusiastically and applaud the creative teachers who are going the extra mile to use it in this way. Would it not be far easier to go down the predictable old word processor, spreadsheet, database and general mishmash called computer literacy road, fooling oneself into thinking that they are preparing young people for working in the digital or information age?
Such training in ephemeral skills is really a total waste of time, and any students forced to sit through such torture should object, and beg to be excused so that they can engage in something far more educational like making a pizza, reading the latest Harry Potter book or watching Stuart Little.
To its credit, the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) in Dublin City University does not treat information and communication technologies as a separate subject, but emphasises its integration across the curriculum to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
Ireland lags significantly behind its European partners in the integration of information and communication technologies into first and second-level education, and the Government has sought to address this deficit through the Schools IT 2000 Project. It has committed itself to achieving computer literacy throughout the school system and will run until the end of 2001, with a public investment of £40 million.
Now, when I hear the phrase computer literacy I wonder are we all speaking about the same thing. Does it mean keyboard skills, or file manipulation or programming, or being able to use the Web? As Clifford Stoll, author of Silicon Snake Oil, Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, says: "If a child doesn't have a questioning mind, what good does all the networked technology do?"
Programming is of little value unless you want to take it up as a career, and learning how to use word processors and spreadsheets only takes a few classes. Using Windows and Web technology is so intuitive it hardly needs to be taught at all. Being master of any of these skills does not make you computer literate; it just means you are adept at a particular function that happens to be housed on a machine called a computer. I routinely drive an Opel Astra, but that does not make me a Formula One driver or a mechanic, and I didn't even learn motor literacy at school!
Why is it now so imperative for students to be able to manipulate the Web for research purposes when the skill of searching library catalogues was never a part of the national curriculum?
THE final and catalytic reason for integrating information and communication technologies into our education system appeals to me. "The use of computers can accelerate positive trends such as increased emphasis on information handling and problem solving and reduced emphasis on memorising facts." If this positive trend does indeed become a reality, IT 2000 will have been a resounding success.
Parents too, according to Michael Hallissey of the NCTE, while anxious that their children receive the best possible education, with information technology being an integral part in it, are also concerned that children are engaged in meaningful IT activity. And with groups such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development accepting that the argument is no longer whether or not computers be part of school life, but how best they can be exploited for optimum gains, the meaningful use of technology is paramount.
It is heartening to read in the IT 2000 document that "the challenge now facing Irish education is to assist every school in enriching teaching and learning through imaginative, educational use of [information and communications technologies]." The ambitious plan is to give every pupil in every school the opportunity to achieve computer literacy to equip them for participation in the information society.
According to Michael Hallissey, the NCTE has already trained about 40,000 teachers, and over the coming months the centre intends moving some of its courses online as well as targeting schools where there has been a low uptake on training. By the end of 2001 we should see at least 60,000 multimedia computers in Irish schools and every school connected to the Internet.
What will the benefits be? Hallissey lists some of them: motivating students to study and grasp material that may not be so attractive in book form; or improving student self-esteem by being able to submit high-quality, finished work without having to worry about issues such as handwriting. Some less cosmetic benefits include the advantages of instant feedback, control over the pace of learning, and opportunities for individual and group problem solving. Knowledge and familiarity with new technologies with a view to employment in an information society is in my view a wrong reason for integrating IT into our schools. Adults who have been trained to think and learn for themselves will easily integrate into the technology of the day, to do whatever they need to do.
Schools are about education, and should not be wasting valuable time "training" people in skills for multinational companies. Let the multinational companies do that themselves when they employ our young people who have the universal, portable and ageless skill of being able to think.
Berni Dwan is a former teacher and technical writer
This and other articles on this page are at The Irish Times website at ireland.com
See also: www.ncte.ie (National Centre for Technology in Education), and www.scoilnet.ie (Irish language education portal), http:/ /bert.eds.udel/oecd/ (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and www.irlgov.ie/educ.default.htm (Department of Education)