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4 Responses to “Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America”

1. Michael Filsecker Wagner
   February 20th, 2010 at 6:58 am

   

   The book addresses the role of public school in the context of the rising of digital technology. In doing so, the authors hope to get people to appreciate the opportunities and value of technology in learning.
   
   The book initiates with several examples of real life cases for illustrating how technology affords people to pursue interest-driven or work-required learning activities (e.g., an online master degree to get promoted, a student’s passion for anime music videos or computer programming), in other words to pursue learning on our own terms, separating the historical association between learning and schooling. Furthermore, the author argues that in the face of the crisis of public education, technology can offer different ways and options to think about where -besides schooling – can learning happen and be delivered (e.g., cybercafés, workplace, learning centers, distance education, etc.).
   
   However, as the authors recognize, this interest-driven and self-sponsored opportunities for learning created by technology may undermine wider social issues such as equity and social cohesion in the context of an increasing economic gap between the rich and the poor. In this context, the value of the book resides in to put these issues on the table with the hope that society wards off these dangers and at the same time exploit the opportunities of new technologies.
   
   The authors compare what they call the enthusiasts and the skeptics’ arguments about technology and schooling. Enthusiasts emphasize technology’s affordances embedded in games and simulations, multimedia and publication opportunities, among others, to further view learning as a constructive process, where students work together in meaningful tasks supported by computer tools, and that take them into the community, while the adults (e.g., teachers, parents) act as guides and supporters of the learning. The idea is to incorporate technology into the core practices of schools. Skeptics see the resistance of schools to technology as a long lasting phenomenon rooted in the conservatism inherent to the teaching practices and its support from the system as a whole, which turns schools “locked in place”. In this context, technology innovations usually take three forms: condemning, marginalizing and co-opting technologies, being the latter the most common one referring to the fact that teachers adopt the technology to their existing practices and not the other way around. Basically, school as conservative institutions will not change in the face of new technologies.
   
   Even though authors accept that schools are locked in place systems that were created to stay, new forms and opportunities for learning different things for different people are emerging (e.g., homeschooling, distance education and learning centers, among others). According to the authors these emergent practices are fueling the era of lifelong learning, and widening inequity and social cohesion.
   
   In the next section the book proposes ways in which schools can cope with the “technology’s imperatives” (i.e., customization, interactivity, and learner center), in the context of contradictory forces such as the one represented by high-stake testing. These strategies are supposed to have direct implications for the design of curriculum, assessment practices and equity issues.
   
   Finally, the authors review different aspects that need some rethinking, for example, learning, motivation, leadership and the responsibility of the govern, among others. Authors finalize describing their view of the education in the future.
   
   Rating: 4 / 5

2. Constance Steinkuehler
   February 20th, 2010 at 8:19 am

   

   Rethinking Education is a tour de force. The authors cover wide terrain yet manage to synthesize their materials both broadly and deeply, providing grant-sweeping (sometimes breathtaking) insights into the current predicament of Education – the veritable tug-of-war being waged between the technology-rich everyday life of the digitally privileged and the backward-leaning industrial model of learning we call schools. I recommend this text for anyone serious about education not just as a topic in history but as an aspiration for future generations: education and sociology scholars, teachers, parents, designers, and lifetime learners themselves. Collins & Halverson may very well be the new “Horace Mann” for today’s increasingly globalized, networked, diverse “flat” (Friedman) world.
   Rating: 5 / 5

3. A. Phonethibsavads
   February 20th, 2010 at 10:26 am

   

   Collins and Halverson raise many legitimate points in this book, but there are also some points of contention that remain unresolved. Although this book proposes few definite answers, it opens up lively discussion for rethinking education in the information age, and it is an essential read for future educators because it outlines very convincingly that schools are following an outdated model and should be reformed. However, the solutions that Collins and Halverson propose will remain points of contention for time to come, and many people will remain skeptical.

   This book does an excellent job of outlining the problem in an easy-to-understand way: In short, the school system as we know it was formed during the Industrial Revolution, and it is designed to efficiently transmit information from the teacher to the students in large numbers. It is clear that the Industrial Age is over, and we are now well into the Information Age, and we see youth becoming a lot more involved in exchanging information and knowledge over the web than before. Consequently, we are finding that students are learning much more in these informal environments because they are voluntarily engaging in information which they find interesting, so Collins and Halverson propose that education should become less institutionalized and more personalized.

   Essentially, Collins and Halverson propose that technology allows personalized instruction to large numbers of students, and education should look more like home-schooling or apprenticeship, in which students decide the terms and conditions of their learning rather than following a prescribed route. This will promote a higher degree of specialization, and “just-in-case” learning would no longer be relevant. Because students would be focusing on what interests them, they would be more motivated to learn, but this model leaves many future educators uneasy.

   However, this book also does a fair job of outlining what may be lost from that proposed model of education, but there are many possible losses that Collins and Halverson did not address or resolve. Some future educators ponder about what would happen to the generalists if this model of personalized online instruction takes place, but it is not likely that generalists would disappear, and in world with such good communication, there would not really be a need for them. Also, when it comes to educating students about prejudice, tolerence, and social justice, schools have been the most effective means because they provide a common space for a diversity of students to interact, but the book does not address this. And finally, this book mentions nothing about physical education. Schools are typically an excellent institution for students to get involved with physical activity and sports, and this book does not address it at all. Although I would not agree entirely with the proposed solutions, I believe this book is an overall worthwhile read that should be taken with a grain of salt.

   One significant qualm that I have with this book is that I find it to be polarizing: It offers perspectives from Technology Enthusiasts and Skeptics without offering a middleground or even explain why or if these two sides are incompatible. The authors present both sides fairly, but it is pretty clear which sides the authors are on. Although these authors are highly knowledgeable and offer a lot of valuable insight, I treat this polarization only as an organizational tool that helps me read and digest information, so I take nothing at face value.

   Nonetheless, I would recommend this to any serious educator or future educator because the insights provocative and valuable, but this book should not be read passively like a novel. Anybody who reads this should be prepared to critique this book very carefully and open up lively discussions about rethinking education.
   Rating: 3 / 5

4. David Foster
   February 20th, 2010 at 12:24 pm

   

   Collins and Halverson have provided a timely and realistic perspective on educational technology that gets us past both the exuberant and the despairing views. There certainly is much more that can and should be said about the many topics they discuss, but I think they’ve successfully located the “core” of the matter, and with welcome brevity.

   Being personally experienced in this field, I’d just offer two or three criticisms. The first is their assumption that interactive learning programs will play a large role in the future of education. I imagine that they eventually will, but after at least thirty years of research and experimentation with such environments, I am impressed by how limited their real-world success has been. The commercial successes have been in the teaching of math, but besides that there’s still a surprising lack of good, usable programs.

   Which leads to a more general comment about the way they characterize the “skeptics’” perspective. The authors stress the institutional obstacles, but I don’t ever hear them acknowledge that making all these different ed tech ideas work “at scale” is much, much harder than it looks. We want to lament schools’ intransigence, and cultural issues, and misguided policies about standards, and etc… but maybe most of what has been offered to schools is bad and unworkable. It doesn’t _seem_ unworkable to most of us, but most of it really has been.

   What may have been helpful in this book would have been an attempt, however speculative, at estimating the time frames likely to be involved in the proliferation of these new forms, i.e. learning centers, distance education, interactive simulations, certifications, etc. Are these changes 5 years away? 20? 100? The historical framework described by Collins and Halverson seems right, but I left wanting to hear more about their third “lifelong learning” era.

   Still, I think the book is groundbreaking and will provide the basis for all future discussions about this topic. And, with these particular authors’ reputation and experience, I am inclined to trust their vision more than I would if someone else had written it.
   
   Rating: 5 / 5