|
|
|
Linda Herbison is a Professor of Business at Mt. Wachusett Community College, Gardner.
Computers in the classroom are revolutionizing the way we teach, the college curriculum, and the expectations we have of our students. As we plunge forward into the 21st century, only the occasional cynic mentions the negatives of computerizing classrooms. In his new book, Silicon Snake Oil - Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, Clifford Stoll shares many concerns he has about spending "inordinate amounts of resources and attention on computers, falsely promising that they're the key to our future" (1995, p. 144).
As an active and long-time user of the Internet, Stoll speaks with authority when he says that students aren't learning as much from the Internet as many people assume they are. Because anyone can join Internet discussions, students need to wade through many silly messages, and some completely incorrect messages, to find a few nuggets of useful information. Research done on the Internet may be more fun than research in a library, but it is likely to give inferior results because only a small fraction of resources are currently available on the Internet. And it is tempting to get distracted from learning by newsgroups like rec.humor.funny or rec.arts.erotica.
Stoll finds passive learning at a computer terminal far inferior to learning from a teacher and a room full of students. But reading this book is far from a passive experience -- I found myself actively disagreeing with Stoll on some points. He can't imagine learning physics or a foreign language from a computer. In college fifteen years ago I supplemented my physics and French classes with many useful hours in a computer lab, working problem after problem, while the computer patiently explained the path to the right answer for each one I got wrong. Stoll laments all the money being spent on computerized card catalogs instead of librarians and books. But librarians I've spoken to talk about all the hours they can now spend helping patrons instead of typing cards.
Stoll's thoughtful arguments are interspersed with astronomy and caving and cookie recipes and computer security (in his first book, The Cuckoo's Edge, he describes how he tracked and caught a German hacker in his astronomy department's computer). Silicon Snake Oil is quick, fun to read, and full of thought-provoking ideas for anyone who has ever taught or considered teaching with the help of a computer.
|
SPRING 1997
|