Education

Andy Carvin:When you get caught up in the hype, it’s easy to forget a very basic axiom: if you’re going to make a fundamental shift in how students and teachers access technology, you better be prepared to make lots of other fundamental shifts in how you assess and teach students. For one thing, those standardized tests used as bellwethers of progress aren’t crafted to assess the kinds of learning that take place with certain technologies. Laptops bring four big opportunities to the table: opportunities for equal access, mobility, individual creativity and for collaboration. Many of these laptop programs focus a lot on the first opportunity - promoting equal access - and bless their hearts for it. But unless educators are in a position to embrace and encourage the other three, you’re missing out on most of the benefits that can come from a laptop program. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen students using their laptops in the classroom as if nothing else had changed, lined up in neat rows, each laptop on a desk, with students listening to a teacher lecture or taking a test on the laptop. Those aren’t laptops - those are expensive pencils. Of course you’re not going to see achievement improve when pedagogical practices aren’t rethought from the ground up! Where is the boldness, the pedagogical imagination required to put these devices to use to reach their teaching potential - and students’ learning potential, for that matter?