backup: adfs::0.$.chap1
1st October 1993
Chapter 1 COMPUTERS IN EDUCATION: SOME ISSUES
From some point in the early 1980s, the microcomputer seems to have
become an increasingly conspicuous object: a potent symbol of "new
technology". In Britain, for example, 1980 was the year that Clive
Sinclair launched the first mass produced micro - the ZX80. Since
then, other manufacturers have marketed ever cheaper, smaller and more
powerful versions of this instrument. It has penetrated and occupied
the offices, shops, factories and spare bedrooms of our culture.
Moreover, within these various niches it supports a curious variety of
human activity: a situation that must be of some interest to social
scientists. Their research may help us appreciate just how this
pervasive technology is effecting our experiences of work, recreation
and social relations. Certainly, that is the very interest to be
explored in the present book. We shall consider one particular niche
occupied by computers - classrooms or, more generally, those places
where teaching and learning gets deliberately organized.
I shall concentrate on the British experience of this educational
innovation; although I am sure circumstances in many other countries
will reflect that experience quite closely (cf., Eraut, 1991; Gywnn,
1988; Plomp and Pelgrum, 1991). In the past ten years, rapid
evolution of the microcomputer has made it possible for British
schools to contemplate substantial investment in this technology.
Political pressure has encouraged them to do so. So, targeted
financial support (via the Department of Trade and Industry) allowed
schools to cope with the strain that this sudden financial commitment
entailed. Moreover, institutional structures were created to support
the curriculum development and staff training that would necessarily
follow. For example, the Microelectronics in Education Programme was
launched for schools and the Computers in Teaching Initiative for
Higher Education.
Ten years on, much of this priming activity has ended. Recent
National Curriculum documents indicate that pressure to assimilate new
technology has now been applied to most subject teaching. The
majority of teachers will have enjoyed some form of in-service
training for tackling the management and application of computers.
Most British classrooms will have reliable access to at least one
machine. So, at the time of writing, there is some sense of stability
in terms of staff development and infrastructure investment. This is
not to imply that the technology itself is not evolving: far from it,
recent developments (notably in multimedia) are impressive and hold a
special promise for educational applications. In any case, it seems a
good time to be taking stock of what has been achieved.
The first question an observer of this scene might ask is "Have
computers been any use to education?" Has this substantial commitment
allowed teachers and learners to reach their goals more efficiently,
more creatively, more agreeably - or however it is we want to express
progress?
In what follows I offer a summary of evaluative research concerned
with such questions. Evaluation defines the first of three central
"issues" arising from computer-based learning that will be reviewed in
this chapter. Discussion of the relevant research will be organized
under two headings below, but the discussion in each case will be
quite brief. This is because I am not sure that judging the outcomes
of disparate current practice is necessarily the only, or the most
urgent, kind of enterprise to be tackling. The situation is in a
great flux and we find a good deal of educational computing has an
improvised and volatile quality. Evaluation makes sense when we are
comfortable with our general aims as practitioners, and have done some
conceptual work to help understand how technology can relate to them.
Without a preliminary analysis of just what kind of educational
environment we want pupils to experience, formal evaluations of
particular computer-based ventures are unlikely to have very much
impact.
Such overarching concerns motivate a good deal of the discussion
in this book. The second of three broad issues to be considered in
the present chapter reviews prevailing models of what an educational
computer activity might "do" for a learner. I shall review these
models by reference to four metaphors that arise from them. Given my
declared interest in the social dimension of education, the
theoretical perspectives that emerge from this review will prove
somewhat discouraging: they do not express a clear place for processes
of social exchange.
This problem will be defined and explored as the final issue to be
addressed in this chapter. My remarks there set the scene for all the
discussion that then follows. Typically, computers are not regarded
as objects that contribute to the "social" quality of our lives. Yet,
I shall argue, effective educational environments are necessarily
rich in socially-organized experiences. The notion of learning as a
"collaborative" activity will be central to the present analysis. I
will be principally concerned to define how new technology can support
collaborations that can flourish within educational settings.
EVALUATION OF COMPUTER-BASED PRACTICE
Now, I would like to turn to the first issue referred to above: the
educational evaluation of computer-based practice. Because of my
concern with social psychological themes, it is natural to begin with
some observations focussing on the *people* caught up in this
innovation. In the first of the following two sections, I will
summarise difficulties associated with the reaction of practitioners
to the implementation of new technology in education. In the second
section, I shall summarize evaluative research on learning outcomes
associated with computer-based instruction where it has been
implemented.
Evaluation of implementation strategies
When we reflect on experience within schools and colleges over the
past ten years, it is inevitable that our judgements about progress
will be influenced by what was *expected* when investment and training
began. These expectations were often extravagant. As Maddux (1989)
observed in this context, pessimism is the familiar enemy of
innovators and, so, a degree of vigorous optimism was natural enough
in the early period of computer diffusion. Even commentary on the very
first, and most modest, examples of such educational intervention
could be fired with enthusiasm (the title of a review by Feldusen and
Szabo (1969) refers to computer-assisted instruction as the
'educational heart transplant'). A more recent judgement that is
often cited occurs in an article by Bork (1980). He comments:
We are at the outset of a major revolution in education, a revolution
unparalleled since the invention of the printing press. The computer
will be the instrument of this revolution...By the year 2000, the
major way of learning at all levels, and in almost all subject areas,
will be through the interactive use of computers (p. 53).
This prediction has more time to run but, in my view, it now looks to
have misjudged something significant in the relation between
education and new technology. It seems that the diffusion of this
technology has not been as dramatic as was expected in the early
period of microcomputer development. Certainly, within recent years,
a number of commentators (themselves sympathetic to computer-based
learning) have felt obliged to remark on the problems associated with
getting computers into active use within education (eg., Bliss,
Chandra and Cox, 1986; Collis, 1987; Cox, Rhodes and Hall, 1988;
Cuban, 1986; Hanson, 1985; Heywood and Norman, 1988; Holden, 1989;
Lepper and Gurtner, 1989; McCormick, 1992; Plomp, Pelgrum and
Steerneman, 1990).
Consequently, actual classroom usage remains limited. A recent
British government report suggests that only about 20% of teaching
time is making use of computers (DES, 1989). Similar limits on uptake
are be apparent in other countries (Dillon, 1985; Plomp and Pelgrum,
1991). Becker comments on the findings of one large scale U.S.
survey: '..in spite of the changes that computers have brought to
schools, only a small minority of teachers and students can be said to
yet be major computer users' (Becker, 1991).
What are the obstacles? It is natural to seek them within the
attitudes or strategies adopted by the teachers who manage this
technology - by looking in a focussed way at what is being done at the
classroom chalk-face. However, this would be too narrow a view.
McCormick (1992) characterises problems arising from a widespread
failure to develop a whole-school strategy. McInerney (1989), Plomp
et al (1990) and Wild (1991) identify a whole range of issues at the
institutional level that need to be confronted to make this innovation
work.
So, progress may depend, to an important extent, upon action organized
at the level of institutional practices. Research that is directed
more at the classroom level tends to dwell on teachers' lack of
self-assurance when using this technology. For example, Heywood and
Norman (1989) highlight obstacles to good practice arising from a
shortfall in (primary) teachers' confidence and their perceived
competence. In Britain at least, there was limited anticipation of
how difficult it might prove for staff unfamiliar with computers to
assimilate them into their practices. On reflection, the combination
of circumstances characterising many teachers first encounters with
this technology should have been fairly explosive. Early
configurations of classroom microtechnology were tedious and
time-consumming to prepare (often requiring the loading of programmes
off small audio cassettes). Educational software could be of very
dubious quality. All sorts of occasions were possible where the
computer would appear to fail - leaving the teacher exposed as having
lost control, (the children's more spontaneous enthusiasm having been
undermined in the process).
Politicians and educational administrators were sensitive to this
problem - if not to its scale. Certainly, some of the extra financial
support for priming this innovation was given over to staff
development. Many formal courses of in-service training (INSET) were
offered. Yet, the feeling often expressed within the profession (in
Britain, at least) is that it was not enough and, often, not of the
right character. It is now popular to challenge the faith of early
policy makers (eg. Fothergill, 1984) that in-service provision was the
quickest way to create an impact. A cascade model underpinned much of
this thinking: the hope was that those who received training on
intensive short courses would go back to their institution and pass on
their expertise. For one reason or another, if they gained any
expertise it looks as if they often kept it to themselves
(Boyd-Barrett, 1990).
The contemporary view is that a better strategy would have been to
concentrate more effort on initial training (Davis, 1992). We are
still in a situation where many new teachers remain awkwardly
unfamiliar with this technology - possibly seeing it only as
threatening (Bracey, 1988; Wellington, 1990). It remains true
that many teachers will have had only superficial pre-service exposure
to new technology; few will yet have enjoyed the experience of growing
up themselves within an established culture of computer use. At the
moment, the opportunities for teachers to gain confidence with new
technology across the period of initial training are often limited.
One survey in 1986 suggested that only 10% of students would use IT on
teaching practice (ITTE, 1987). The situation has improved recently,
although most students report they are still encountering the
technology as an isolated activity (Dunn and Ridgeway, 1991).
The urgency of this problem is hinted at by one extensive review of
the effectiveness of microcomputer work (in primary classrooms).
In a meta-analysis of recent evaluative research, Ryan (1991)
documented the effects of 40 variables on the impact of computer-based
learning experiences. Only one external variable was found to exert
any moderating effect of computer activity on pupil achievement: the
extent of teacher pre-training on the activity under study. This
draws attention to the fact that effective preparation involves more
than instilling the confidence to *motivate* implementation. The
success of computer-supported learning also depends upon teacher
contact with pedagogic ideas concerning good practice with this
technology: the enthusiastic teacher needs to be prepared in this
sense also.
Of course, any present initiative for acting at the point of initial
training is of little relevance to teachers already in post. Thus,
attention to the format of INSET experiences remains important. At
present, there is evidence that these experiences are not always
ideal. The problems are not merely a limited cascade of expertise:
the experience of course participants themselves is often one of
disappointment. The problems are illustrated in an extensive study of
in-service provision carried out by Rhodes and Cox (1990a,b). They
were able to witness the management of training programmes and to
visit the schools of staff who had attended them. So, they could
observe classroom practice as well as interview participating
teachers. A somewhat gloomy picture emerges from this comprehensive
survey. The training regimes did not appear well matched to the
experience or needs of these teachers. Consequently, they were not as
effective as the tutors had expected or hoped. Much of what was
achieved related to problems of using the technology itself, at the
expense of tackling real educational issues. Half of the sample of
teachers believed the computer resulted in an increase in their
workloads and that it made no fundamental change to the way in which
they worked - merely reinforcing existing patterns of activity.
This snapshot of practitioner experience is sobering - particularly to
those of us researchers whose (possibly selective) contact with
classroom practice may create a rosey picture of innovative
possibilities. The situation is well summarised in one survey that
revealed only 14% of primary school teachers felt competent to use a
range of IT applications without assistance (Davis, 1992). Yet how
might the general picture be made more heartening? Rhodes and Cox
identify the commitment of the Head Teacher as significant in
determining attitudes within a school more generally. But they also
urge more effective experiences for preparing and supporting teachers
in their use of this relatively unfamiliar resource. Thus, at
present, there may be few sites where a culture of computer use is
comfortably established - where the potential impact of particular
computer-based activities can be evaluated in a convincing manner.
Nevertheless, my colleague Geoff Alred and I have recently had the
opportunity to study one initiative where an effective context for
innovation was carefully cultivated: where circumstances seemed more
favourable to effective implementation of the kind that policy makers
hope for. A local education authority invited primary schools to
volunteer staff for participation in a project to evaluate Turtle
Logo. This is an activity that will be described in more detail in a
later section. Suffice to say it is a challenging exercise in
computer programming based upon controlling the movements of either a
floor robot or a screen icon ("turtle"). New equipment was supplied;
the project ran over a generous time period (at least four terms), and
it incorporated specialized in-service support (with suitable teaching
cover). In short, the conditions of the venture would seem to be very
favourable: the focal activity (Logo) is widely endorsed in early
education and the project was well supported by specialized training
opportunities. Moreover, the participants were motivated (if not
highly experienced) and could enjoy the advantage of being part of a
community of innovators. In summary, this situation seemed to us to
approximate what elsewhere has been described as the "ideal"
circumstance of an IT-related in-service provision (Owen, 1992,
p.130).
These teachers kept diaries summarising their experience and Alred and
I were able to interview them at some length towards the end of the
formal project. The emerging picture is a mixed one. Although it was
not part of our purpose to observe the classroom activity directly, it
was apparent that the children had enjoyed the Logo work: most of
the teachers had been impressed by their engagement with it. Yet, on
balance, the implementation project as a whole can not be regarded a
great success. One measure of success would be how far the activity
remained in use to become part of classroom routine for subsequent
generations of pupils to enjoy. One year after the official end of
the project, less than a quarter of the teachers were found to be
still using Logo with their new classes. As it happens, our
conversations with them had led us to expect this.
Although they recognized the innovative nature of the activity - as
well as the children's enthusiasm for it - they also were keen to
identify the practical difficulties associated with managing it on a
routine basis. Mundane problems of unreliable turtles were a major
source of disappointment. But as the activity can be supported on the
screen alone (i.e., it does not depend on a working floor robot),
this can not explain the widespread failure to consolidate the
experience beyond the life of the project. Other problems mentioned
related to the time and effort involved in preparing the computer and
ensuring its security. The teachers also remarked on the difficulty
of monitoring and supporting the activity at the same time that
classroom life was continuing as normal around it. Finally, taking
such necessary effort into account, there was some doubt as to whether
comparable academic achievements could not be reached in simpler ways.
To some extent the adequacy of the in-service provision arises again
here: certainly, this was another source of some dissatisfaction among
the participants. Many of the problems experienced *seem* as if they
should have been tractable with experienced advice and encouragement:
however, there is a danger in continually laying the blame at this
door. At some point we may have to acknowledge that the creative
deployment of this technology puts a lot more strains on the status
quo of classroom life than has been recognized. More sensitive
preparation and training might be some part of a solution to this
problem but there is clearly an invitation to reflect more carefully
on defining the optimal computer *environment* for supporting
innovation as effortlessly as we can. That is an issue to which I
shall return later in this book.
Evaluation of learning outcomes
Evaluation of what gets learned from such a multi-faceted innovation
is not easy. For one thing, its use has not been planned in
programmatic terms. Insofar as pressure for innovation has largely
been applied from above, practitioners may have felt little sense of
dealing in *options* for change: options that might be catalogued and
approached in a spirit of formal evaluation. The atmosphere has been
more one of seizing opportunities and improvising a way forward.
However, if we persist in seeking evaluative data, it can be sought in
respect of two broad questions. Firstly, has there been progress in
imparting to young learners some fluency in simply using new
technology? The phrase "computer literate" has evolved to capture
what this might mean. Secondly, can computers assist mastery of those
particular curriculum areas where they have been used to support
teaching: geography, maths, music, or whatever? This is a more
subject-based question.
Simply in terms of whether pupils now have the chance to encounter new
technology in schools, we can say that things have worked. Most
school children will enjoy some hands-on experience of computers.
Whether the experience leaves them adequately comfortable and
confident is another matter: it may yet be too modest in scope. This
may be a matter of some concern, given what is known about attitudes
to new technology among the current generation of adults. For that
generation, a clinical vocabulary has been felt necessary to capture
the extremes of feeling: computers are capable of inducing "phobic"
responses in some (Meier, 1985) while in others they can acquire the
status of an "addiction" (Shotton, 1989).
What can be said about the rising generation of computer users is that
such extremes of attitude are not apparent at the earlier stages of
using computers in school. Numerous reports endorse the view that
children's early experience with computers in classrooms today is a
positive one - as they themselves judge it (cf. Hughes, Brackenridge
and Macleod, 1987). It is perhaps still too soon to judge whether
such favourable early reactions predict greater confidence (and less
aversion) on completion of school. Data to be presented later in this
book suggest that some of the most academically successful of school
leavers (undergraduates) still include significant numbers who remain
(i) relative novices in terms of experience, and (ii) have very
uncertain attitudes regarding the appeal of using computers. Perhaps
ten years of gradual development is still too short a period to assess
whether educational practice is creating a natural culture of computer
use.
However, we are not just concerned with learning to use computers:
we are also interested in using computers to learn. A second
evaluation question concerns impacts associated with deploying
computers to support teaching in the traditional curriculum areas.
Can this technology help pupils learn about, say, mathematics,
geography, design, and so on? The more circumscribed nature of such
questions suggest they might allow more confident answers.
Unfortunately, the resulting picture can not be as clear as we might
like it to be.
For one thing, research in the relevant settings and under the
prevailing conditions of innovation is not easy to manage (Bork,
1991). We will usually wish to conduct studies in which different
conditions of learning are created and compared. However, explicitly
tinkering with resource allocation may be both unwelcome and
impractical. Institutions may be open to participation in research
but not if the research procedures undermine equity of opportunity for
their pupils. They will also resist being deprived of access to
leading edge technologies - where this is simply in the interest of
comparative research exercises. Thus, true *experiments* are not easy
to conduct. Moreover, "natural experiments" (in which we compare
spontaneously differing educational circumstances) bring their own
problems: the differences found in these cases may conceal other
differing population characteristics that also contribute to the
outcomes compared. These problems were identified by reviewers of
early initiatives (eg. Jamison, Suppes and Wells, 1971) and, still,
they remain an obstacle to confident evaluation.
Moreover, it is surely fanciful to suppose singular generalizations
will be found that can make sense of such diverse educational
activities. Computers support a very wide variety of learning
encounters in a very wide range of curriculum areas. We must be wary
of sweeping rulings on *the* success (or failure) of new technology.
However, if some feeling for the state of an evaluation balance sheet
is still felt valuable, summaries of such research have been
reported. Kullick, Kullick and Bangert-Downs (1985) have conducted a
meta-analysis over a large number of published studies evaluating
computer-based teaching projects in early education. They find
reliable and recurring positive impacts - amounting, on average, to
improvements of around 0.48 standard deviations on outcome test
scores, or student movement from the 50th to the 68th percentile.
These effects seem strongest in early educational settings. More
recently, a further meta-analysis (Ryan 1991) has focused on primary
school interventions of eight weeks or longer. Similar findings are
reported. The mean effect size across the studies reviewed was 0.309.
This may be expressed by saying that the treatment groups, on average,
exceeded the performance of 62% of their matched peers in control
groups.
Kulick and Kulick (1987) report comparable effect sizes beyond early
education, although it is widely believed that outcome effects remain
strongest for interventions within the elementary sector (Niemiec and
Walberg, 1987). In a meta-analysis of such meta-reviews Niemiec and
Walberg conclude: 'The average and typical effect of CAI is to place
the average student using it at the 66th percentile of traditional
groups - a substantial though not overwhelming advantage' (1987,
p.31).
Given the scale of the underlying educational investment and upheaval,
effects of this magnitude might be judged less dramatic than we could
hope for. Of course, we must be cautious in interpreting such
findings. The statistics will conceal a great deal of variation
associated with the sheer range of possible computer-based activity.
Moreover, methodologically pure evaluation studies are more feasible
with those forms of computer-based instruction that reinforce existing
curricular concerns - and for which teacher-based control groups are
more readily defined. Certainly, studies focused on drill and skill
forms of software seem over-represented in reviews. The more radical
and innovative applications of the technology may be less easily
studied under the strict methodological requirements sought by
meta-reviews of the literature.
Disappointment in these findings may be premature for other reasons:
many practitioners will declare that, whatever evaluation research
shows, they can simply see the computer "doing good". If
post-intervention testing is failing to endorse this then, they would
argue, this may be a reflection of the short term, piecemeal nature of
the outcome measures. Our tools for assessing what is being changed
may be blunt instruments. Moreover, the modest scope and duration of
many formalized interventions could miss effects apparent in a truly
motivated and committed classroom.
If we do wish to conduct evaluations of what is learned in
computer-based contexts, we must go beyond the input-output designs
that characterize much research in the area. It may not be enough
only to expose a pupil to some software and, sometime later, do an
outcome test of understanding. The reason this is inadequate is
because any such computer experience is more or less situated in some
broader framework of teaching activity. In short, there is a risk of
casting this educational technology in terms that suggest a medical
model of how it works. Computers are unlikely to function as magic
bullets - effortlessly releasing their therapeutic effects at points
identified by teachers. The unfamiliarity and wizardry that surrounds
them may cultivate such notions, but the real impact of learning
through this technology may need to be measured with attention to how
it is assimilated into the surrounding frame of educational activity.
That will be one theme to be developed in what follows here. There is
considerable variation possible in how researchers conceptualise the
way a computer programme is being "used". This, in turn, must
influence empirical strategies favoured for the evaluating the
"effects" of some computer activity.
For this reason, the research reviewed above should not encourage too
hasty and definitive conclusions about how effective computers are in
supporting learning. Their impact may need to be judged with careful
attention to broader patterns of *use*. This demands consideration of
how computer-based experiences are integrated into the broader frame
of activities that define an organized environment for teaching and
learning. Across different settings, there may be significant
variation in how radically the same technology serves to restructure
the activity of learning. Thus, its influence will not always be
neatly contained within events at the pupil-computer interface itself.
Researchers may need to look further than this in defining the "place"
at which computers work their effects.
My discussion of evaluation has converged on this issue of
understanding the broader context of computer-based learning. The
same theme of integration will arise in the discussions below of more
theoretical perspectives available to characterise computer-based
learning. It does appear that seamless integration has been more
problematic than many committed observers had hoped. I would suggest
that there are three persistent problems that underly the dis-located
nature of many classroom computer experiences. Firstly, there is a
great deal of controversy over how this technology is best deployed:
what *sort* of role it is supposed to play in relation to existing
patterns of teaching. Secondly, there has been some teacher
resistance to computers on grounds of limited familiarity - a
circumstance that might suggest inadequate provision of pre-service
preparation and in-service staff development. Finally, there may be
deeply rooted concerns regarding the impact of technology on the
*social* quality of educational experience. This last problem is a
particular focus within what follows in this book.
These various obstacles to implementation will be explored further in
the remainder of this chapter. In dealing with the first
(conceptualising the computer as a learning resource), I shall
evaluate four prevailing metaphors: computer-as-tutor,
computer-as-pupil, computer-as-simulation and computer-as-tool. The
second problem (that of teacher preparation), I have discussed above.
The final obstacle to a seamless integration will be introduced and
defined in the last section of the chapter. There I shall consider
how an (apparently) impersonal technology relates to what is
traditionally a most socially-organized activity: classroom learning.
CONCEPTUALISING THE NATURE OF COMPUTER-BASED LEARNING
One imbalance within the review that follows should be acknowledged.
Much of the published research in this area has been focussed on the
concerns and practices of *early* education. To some extent this
merely reflects the special interest that psychologists and
educationalists have in the management of learning in the "formative"
years. It also may reflect the fact that computer use may be more
pervasive (Becker, 1991) and more successful (Niemiec and Walberg,
1987) in primary education than it is in the secondary sector.
However, I am confident that the substantive points arising here apply
very generally to other sectors of education.
It is not possible to review all of the achievements and arguments
that rightly belong under each of the sub-headings used in the
present section. I merely intend to establish that there are problems
to be addressed and that these are not problems that are tractable
through the application of simple evaluation experiments. Here my own
preference for a method of tackling the practical problems is
apparent. I shall argue, that what is more urgently needed is a
theoretical framework to help systematise some of the tensions and
uncertainties associated with the present state of computers applied
to education. What will actually emerge in later chapters is one
particular theoretical framework; one closely associated with certain
contemporary preoccupations within developmental psychology: namely,
the socio-cultural or socio-historical perspective.
In short, the following review of options for framing computer-based
practice will not attempt to be comprehensive; instead, it will
crystallise a number of challenges that will be recovered in later
chapters for reconsideration in terms of a socio-cultural view. This
will be particularly pertinent for discussion in Chapter 2, where the
nature of this perspective is more fully discussed.
(1) The tutorial metaphor: computer-as-tutor
This section concerns a form of computer software that reproduces a
traditional model of teaching and learning. I shall note that such
software is popular despite criticisms from educational theorists. I
argue that the reasons for its popularity are complex and deserve more
sympathetic reactions.
In his book *Teachers and machines*, Cuban (1986) reminds us that the
enterprise of marrying educational practice with contemporary
technologies has a long history. Yet it was not until the 1950s that
people began to entertain the concept of a "teaching machine" - in the
sense of a mechanism that directly instructs. Such a technology would
not be simply something that teachers employed to illustrate or
elaborate their teaching. To a significant degree it could take over,
wholesale, what a teacher does.
Efforts to create such machines arose from a species of applied
psychology associated with Behaviourism, a dominant theoretical
paradigm within Psychology at the time. Yet, whatever the former
authority of Behaviourism, it is fair to say that the teaching
machines of this era were neither very successful nor very popular
(see Skinner (1984) for disappointed reflection on the neglect of such
behaviourist enthusiasms). Certainly, the early realization of this
idea had virtually disappeared from education at the time that
microcomputers made their entry. However, the spirit of
machine-as-tutor has been revived: finding its modern realization in
certain controversial varieties of educational software that are in
widespread current use.
It seems that the ambition to simulate tutorial instruction does
retain a seductive quality. So, when school micros began to appear in
Britain, the education correspondent of The Times was able to headline
his copy 'A teacher on every desk' (The Times, 1984). Yet, if we are
amused by this ten years on, it is surely more for the sheer scale of
computerisation implied by such a vision. The principle of desktop
teachers probably still carries serious credibility - with many
enthusiasts supposing the obstacle is merely limited access to
adequately powerful delivery systems. Certainly, contemporary
technology is far more versatile than that available to an earlier
generation of designers: so, it will be argued, we should take
seriously the mission to embody features of teacher-pupil interaction
within the design of educational software.
In fact, the appeal of computer-as-tutor may, in part, be sustained by
one particular perspective on the nature of teacher-pupil dialogue.
Some commentators (Dillon, 1985; Levin, Kim and Riel, 1990) have drawn
a parallel between the design of much educational software and a form
of classroom interaction characterised as I-R-E sequences (Mehan,
1979; Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975). That is, verbal exchanges taking
the form of a (teacher) Initiation, a (pupil) Response and a (teacher)
Evaluation. As in:
Teacher: ... if its a pentagon, how many sides does it have?
Pupil : Five sides
Teacher: Thats right, well done.
Ethnographers of classroom discourse report such sequences are
commonplace. It is, of course, a form of talk into which pupils
become socialized and which we recognize as peculiarly characteristic
of school experience. We accept its features, perhaps without much
reflection: the ritualistic nature of the exchange, the idea of people
asking questions to which they know the answer, the expectation of
evaluative feedback, and so on. It is clearly something that happens
when teaching is in progress. It might also be something that could
happen within a dialogue arranged between a pupil and a computer: 'The
computer initiates, the student replies, the computer evaluates, the
computer initiates again, and so on' (Levin et al, 1990 p. 210).
In fact, such sparse realization of the computer-as-tutor is quite
common within the so-called 'Computer-aided instruction' (CAI)
tradition. This approach has involved preoccupation with two goals in
the creation of effective tutorial software: (i) individualization -
problems and questions tailored to the (changing) needs of particular
learners, and (ii) the delivery of constructive feedback. What this
has often entailed is refining procedures for getting the initiating
questions "right" (matched to what the current pupil knows) and
attending to the crafting of accurate and motivating feedback. At its
most modest, this may merely mean saying "no" if a pupil makes an
error, supplying correct answers where appropriate, and choosing a new
level of problem to match pupil progress.
The more advanced versions of such CAI are sometimes termed
"Intelligent Tutoring Systems" (eg., Anderson, Boyle and Franklin,
1985; Burns, Parlett and Redfield, 1991; Mandl and Lesgold, 1988;
Quere, 1986; Self, 1988; Sleeman and Brown, 1982). They illustrate
one particular enthusiasm closely associated with computer-based
education: namely, the goal of creating a strongly individualised
curriculum. Thus, the "intelligence" of an ITS system would reside
not merely in its programmed expertise for the domain of knowledge.
It would also be able intelligently to diagnose the learner's needs
and, then, intelligently to implement an individualised tutorial
dialogue.
The ITS tradition of instructional software has been more visible in
military and industrial training contexts than within formal
education. This may partly reflect the sophisticated hardware
platforms that are needed (usually beyond the financial reach of
schools). It may also reflect the fact that implementation may be
more realistic for developing skilled behaviour within fairly
circumscribed domains of action. Broader educational goals may be
more difficult to realise. Thus, at the time of writing, really
effective examples of this format are rarely encountered in
classrooms. The preoccupation of ITS enthusiasts has been with the
possibility of seriously individualising the curriculum - a teaching
technology sensitive to individual learners. Yet it has proved
surprisingly difficult to construct algorithms that diagnose
effectively a pupil's particular errors and needs. Even something as
apparently straightforward as learning subtraction turns out to be a
skill that supports a rich variety of pupil misunderstandings and
procedural "bugs" (Brown and Burton, 1978). So, even this simple
domain is not easy to "tutor" in the automated sense we are
contemplating here.
Perhaps a compromise is possible - could some of the decisions
regarding customization of problems to the learner's needs be passed
over to pupils to make for themselves? For example, pupils might
make their own choices in respect of the difficulty of problems they
are equipped to tackle. This is evidently an option; although, when
younger children confront computer-based problems, it seems we cannot
necessarily assume that they will choose levels of difficulty that are
challenging or well-matched to their state of knowledge (Crook and
Steele, 1987).
In spite of the admitted difficulty of building "intelligence" into
computer-based tutoring systems, software conceived within this
broad (tutor) model of educational computing has often been the most
readily adopted by teachers. This is particularly the case within
early education. Moreover, the most widely employed examples are
those with the least pretension to some modest "intelligence". Such
programmes - repetitively delivering discrete problems within some
domain of study - are often termed "drill and practice" or "drill and
skill" programmes. Surveys of classroom practice reveal a striking
preference for these more didactic forms of software (Becker, 1991;
Jackson, Fletcher and Messer, 1986), particularly for children under 9
years old (DES, 1991).
Conversely, these are programmes held in very poor regard among
professional commentators (eg., Papert, 1980; Self, 1985). Papert, in
particular, is a vigorous critic whose slogan that the modern pupil is
being controlled by the computer (rather than vice versa) is
frequently cited. Thus, the most widespread practical realization of
our computer-as-tutor metaphor is widely criticised by educational
theorists as constraining the learner's experience. It is judged to
offer poor approximations to what is itself a rather poor model of the
teaching process in the first place (didactic encounters guided by the
IRE pattern of dialogue). However, simply because of their widespread
use, we should reflect on these kinds of activity a little further
here. Why have programmes fashioned in this tradition been so widely
preferred by practitioners?
To answer this, we should consider an observation made by Cuban
(1986). Reviewing the history of teaching and machines, Cuban
concludes that what practitioners prefer to do with computers merely
reproduces the typical fate of any new technology applied to
education. It tends to be assimilated to prevailing traditions of
classroom practice. Cuban's documentation of this relentless pattern
is convincing but the analysis is often invoked by others in a rather
disparaging manner. We may agree that this inertia is unfortunate -
in that it reflects a failure to seize *new* opportunities - but
we should attempt to make sense of it. Simply proposing that teachers
have a limited vision of good practice is an ungenerous and, probably,
inaccurate conclusion.
Thus, we may accept Cuban's claim that the popularity of drill and
skill computer activities can serve to maintain a status quo. But I
would then suggest two particular ways to make more sense of this.
First, the strategy of assimilation to existing practice is a ready
reaction to the unwelcome demands of an imposed innovation. Second,
the strategy reflects some degree of genuine commitment to that
feature of the status quo. Opportunity for structured practice is
seen as something that is worth developing - and new technology is
identified as one way to do this.
The first of these two observations supposes that innovative adoption
of computers is more difficult to achieve than is often assumed. In
an earlier section, attention was drawn to the practical problems
associated with incorporating new technology into classrooms. Studies
of in-service training provision suggest a mismatch between what is
offered and what is needed. They draw attention to how we may
overestimate the ease with which teachers can develop confidence with
an unfamiliar technology. Research also highlights the hidden demands
entailed in the professional support of innovative work on classroom
computers. Under such pressure, teachers may well adopt the
comparatively effortless solution of focussing their commitment on
straightforward, self-contained programmes that pupils can work
through independently. These would be drill and skill software of the
sort that is found to be widely used. There is some suggestion that
this preference does represent a kind of holding response in an
uncomfortable situation (Heywood and Norman, 1989).
This reason for the popularity of more humdrum tutorial software is a
reactive one - though none the less important to uncover and
understand. However, the second reason I proposed for the popularity
of drill-based programs suggests a more actively positive attitude
towards them. It may be rash to simply exclude a place for drill and
practice within the learning process. Teachers may feel that such
experiences forms an important part of achieving certain educational
goals. Anyone who has, for example, attempted to cultivate musical
pitch, or master the differential calculus will probably appreciate
the merit in dense experience of exemplary problems from the relevant
domain. Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1984, 1986) elaborate this point in the
context of a psychological model describing the development of skilled
expertise. So, the value of furnishing opportunities for unadorned
practice may be accepted. Yet, if it is accepted, it need not presume
wholesale reduction of educational activity to the rehearsal of
discrete sub-skills.
Practitioners may, therefore, endorse the view that much of
what they teach permits some place for such focussed practice.
They may also concede that furnishing the necessary opportunities is
not the easiest or most rewarding part of their responsibility. That
is exactly where computers may offer an easy appeal. They seem to
offer some release from this problem. Computer-based versions of
practice within a domain may be particularly attractive simply because
they can offer this opportunity in an (apparently) engaging manner.
In fact, Cuban (1986) admits some sympathy with the use of computers
for drills, arguing that this is what computers are actually very good
at (see also Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1984) and Marsh, (1985)).
I am proposing that the preference for simple computer-as-tutor
implementations needs to be made sense of rather than automatically
disparaged. Part of the sense we might make of it involves
acknowledging the local ecology within which computer innovation is
being encouraged: those conditions may not always be favourable, and
skill-type programs are a ready solution to sustain some level of
computer use. But the sense we make of it might also involve an
admission that the creation of practice-oriented opportunities has
some legitimacy. Computers can raise the appeal of what might
otherwise be a less rewarding activity. In fact, when we confront
examples of the genre we may even fail to notice what their underlying
format is quite mundane. An illustration from early education may
help to make this point.
In a recent review, Scott, Cole and Engel (1992) are critical of the
computer drill tradition. Yet, an example program they furnish for
purposes of contrast - and to illustrate imaginative use of computers
- seems to have typically drill-like features. The program invites
pupils to assign values at positions on a number line; an activity
that is embedded in a game involving the harpooning of a shark. In
other words, a repetitive exercise in which the shark's position on
the computer screen is an invitation to generate a numerical
representation. This would count as a drill program in any survey of
classroom practice: it is apparently a self-contained and repetitive
exercise involving a basic mathematical skill.
Yet, Scott et al may be right to cite such a program with some
approval. It sounds engaging enough and, surely, a teacher with the
task of helping children cultivate strategies of estimation will find
it attractive. Moreover, there are plenty of other examples of such
circumscribed activities that could be judged equally appealing. Some
of them have evolved from careful work within cognitive psychological
theory (eg., Resnick and Johnson, 1988). In the face of temptation
from interesting drill-based programmes such as that described above,
a tolerant attitude to the genre seems possible - especially if
Dreyfus and Dreyfus' caution is respected: '...the only danger in the
use of the computer for drill and practice and for diagnosis arises
from the temptation to overemphasize the sort of training in which the
computer works, precisely because it works so well' (1986, p.133).
Coming to believe that domains of knowledge could be reduced *only* to
packaged exercises is one possibility we should remain alert to. I
shall mention one more before closing this section on
computer-as-tutor: one that is more central to my concern here with
social context.
This flirting with computer activities - incorporating them at the
periphery as vehicles-for-practice - is a strategy with its own
problems. In particular, marginalising certain activities in the way
that can happen with computers, may serve to undermine their impact.
Something of value may be lost where such activities are not knitted
into a mainstream of class learning. The limit to computers
functioning as tutors arises not just because tutorial dialogue is
hard to simulate at the moment-to-moment level of conversation.
Computers are also limited in this role because 'tutoring' talk is
something that is organized at levels superordinate to that of the
current moment. In other words, effective tutorial dialogues are
embedded in more extensive contexts of shared classroom experience.
Such dialogues are normally made possible by the history of this
experience. Their effectiveness may depend on creating a natural
continuity of reference with it - a richness of context that will be
very hard to reproduce mechanically. This is a concern I shall
elaborate further in Chapter 4 where it will be approached in terms of
our current theme of collaboration.
A failure to involve activities of the kind we have been discussing
within a fuller collaborative pattern is one basis for concern with
the popular computer-as-tutor strategy. Another has already been
alluded to: namely, that this preferred use of computers causes us to
miss an opportunity for innovation. The misfortune here is more a
failure to recognize that a particular technology has potential beyond
that which represents its more accessible and effortless applications.
More generously, and as argued above, we may grant that the potential
may be recognized by teachers, but the reality of implementation may
be more demanding than educational commentators appreciate.
There are grounds to feel disappointment that circumstances are
apparently jeopardizing opportunities to do genuinely new things
through the mediation of computers. The technology is capable of
supporting distinctively challenging and innovative activities, as
well as re-formatting more familiar tasks. This is an observation
commonly deployed to justify and encourage implementations conceived
according to our second metaphor, the one to be considered next.
(2) The construction metaphor: compter-as-pupil
We encountered above Papert's (1980) widely-cited concern that to
regard the computer as a form of teacher was to risk a situation in
which children were "controlled" by the technology. Yet, the survey
statistics do reveal that software in the simple tutorial tradition
commands considerable appeal. Perhaps the rhetoric of "control" is
too provocative here to be fully persuasive. Teachers recognize that
these computer-based activities often parallel traditional classroom
activity; they conform to the purposes pursued elsewhere in the class;
Moreover, they may be more engaging in format. If this is to be
conceptualized as "control", then it runs deeply within educational
culture and, thereby, the critique is somewhat defused.
On the other hand, there may be teachers who are uneasy about that
culture and impatient with the style of practice they often find
themselves party to. They may then recognize in new technology a
potential for subverting the status quo rather than upholding it. In
particular, they may sense a possibility of shifting from more
teacher-centred to more pupil-centred practices. For many, Papert's
vision of the computer in education offered something of this
potential. In his book *Mindstorms* (1980), Papert not only denied
the tradition of computers in control of pupils, he proposed an
alternative in which that relation would be reversed: pupils would
control the machines. But, most importantly, the ways in which they
might come to do this would entail especially potent learning
experiences. The idea is captured well in his notion of a
microworld. This is a setting in which learners can apply principled
knowledge to effect genuinely creative activity. They *construct* new
understandings through their exploratory activity.
Papert's proposal is driven by a compelling image. If you wish to
learn to speak French, he argues, you go to France. This surely makes
good sense to us. But if France is where you go to command French,
where do you "go" to command, say, Mathematics? What must be
discovered in that case is a sort of "Mathsland". In such a place,
the learner might encounter situations where various opportunities are
offered for hypothesis-testing explorations; where existing knowledge
must be mobilized to solve urgent and motivated problems. It would be
a versatile platform from which one's initially modest base of
knowledge could be meaningfully exercised.
This describes an environment of discovery-based learning. So, it
suggests an important theoretical influence: namely, the ideas of
Piaget on cognitive development. First, Piaget's notion of the
learner as necessarily active is strongly endorsed. A microworld is a
place where things are getting *done*: in Papert's realizations, such
action amounts to teaching computers to do something interesting - the
computer is thus the "pupil" in these encounters. Another important
principle defining the microworld environment is that it should be
somewhere that maximises the experience of discovery. So, it might be
a place where teachers can more effectively respect Piaget's warning:
'Each time we prematurely teach a child something he would have
discovered for himself, the child is kept from inventing it and
consequently from understanding it completely' (Piaget, 1970, p. 715).
Papert furnished a particularly striking example of a microworld
environment with his Turtle Logo. This is an activity that can be
described from two perspectives. Firstly, it is a vehicle for
introducing certain concepts that are central to writing computer
programmes. Logo is a computer language that has a number of
important features. In particular, it incorporates procedures
(sub-units of code performing discrete functions), it is extensible
(the user can define these units to be used as primitives), and it
embodies recursion (such procedures can be self-referring). For
Papert, these exemplify 'powerful ideas': ideas that can be mobilized
very generally for problem solving. He supposes that the opportunity
to exercise them in some concrete (computer-based) activity allows
them to surface sufficiently clearly that the learner can directly
contemplate them. Such reflection will help these skills become more
readily available in other problem solving domains. Treating the
computer as a "pupil" in Papert's sense (programming it) is, thus,
taking an opportunity to cultivate general problem solving skills.
So, Logo is about acquiring such skills via programming. It is also
about controlling the particular settings which act as vehicles for
the programming. The vehicle that Papert promoted most successfully
was turtle geometry. Within this microworld, the learner can issue
instructions (a programme) that cause movement of a floor robot
(turtle). The same instructions can, more simply, be used to create
patterns on a computer screen. Here, then, we find something
corresponding to the elusive "Mathsland": arithmetic, algebra and
geometry all encountered in the purposeful task of generating movement
or creating patterns. The computer offers a meaningful and motivating
environment in which principled knowledge can be applied towards
creative goals. The learner is using her understanding to "teach" -
the computer is acting as pupil.
Turtle maths is not the only outlet for Logo. For example, in another
instantiation of the basic programming environment, some interesting
possibilities can be created to support work in the language
curriculum. However, it was turtle Logo that truly captured the
imagination of educators. It could be said that it remains the most
striking realization of what Papert so appealing defined as a
"microworld". Certainly, it must be unique in the sheer energy and
enthusiasm that it drew from the community of users. Magazines and
special interest groups have flourished in support of the Logo
teaching community.
Ten years on, some of that energy arguably has dissipated. One reason
is an important one to mark here. Logo attracted more focussed
evaluation research than any other computer-based enterprise. The
strength of the claims made for it and its obvious appeal among pupils
naturally invited careful assessment. On the whole, the evaluations
have not been as positive as enthusiasts might have hoped for. A
number of critical reviews have now appeared (eg., Dudley-Marling and
Owston, 1988; Pea and Kurland, 1987; Pea, Kurland and Hawkins, 1987;
Simon, 1987). Moreover, apart from the example of Logo, studies of
pupils learning other computer languages have not furnished very
persuasive evidence for the generalizability of programming skills
(Dalbey, Tournaire and Linn, 1986; Palumbo, 1990).
Yet the emerging picture is not one of unqualified disappointment. In
fact, in terms of the arguments developed elsewhere in this book, the
findings of Logo evaluations are very instructive. Pea and his
colleagues, in particular, have made a useful characterization of the
circumstances under which this kind of learning environment may and
may not be effective. It seems that situations where outcomes from
Logo experience have been less successful are those where participants
have too enthusiastically adopted Piaget's dictum (quoted above) about
avoiding "premature" teaching. These less successful ventures may
illustrate too great a faith in the principle characterised by Perkins
(1985) as 'the opportunity does the teaching by itself' - the
idea that simply using it is enough. Except that, in this case, such
faith is likely to be amplified by witnessing conspicuous engagement
among the learners.
Enthusiasm for such pupil-led opportunities is complemented by natural
distrust of the opposing alternative: more teacher-controlled
situations. Perkins comments (sceptically) 'Often it is even urged
that direct teaching may do mischief by forcing the issue in an
unmotivated and acontextual manner' (1985, p. 13). In all this there
may be too careless a polarization of the options. There *is* an
issue associated with inauthentic learning and we will wish to remain
vigilant in respect of it. But 'direct teaching' is not the exclusive
alternative to a discovery-based microworld encounter. In the ideal
situation, involvement of teachers may need to be very much "indirect"
in manner, but nevertheless their involvement is crucial. Around
Logo-learning pupils, there are important things to be done (and said)
by others who are themselves more confident with the relevant
concepts. The challenge is to discover more of how this supportive
function is to be defined: that, in turn, may require us to consider
the "collaborations" that computers-as-pupils afford.
This section on computers-as-pupils has reached one conclusion very
similar to that reached in the discussion computers-as-tutors above.
In each case, the implementation of the computer activity may too
easily encourage a distancing of teacher involvement; or, more
generally, a dislocation from the normally rich context of class-based
activity and discussion. As was commented at the end of the previous
section, this is a threat to the collaborative quality of learning
experiences: one to which we shall give more attention in later
chapters.
Conceptions of computers as tutors and as pupils have been important
in determining the most common patterns of use. However, there are at
least two further metaphors with wide appeal. I shall comment more
briefly on each of these next.
(3) Simulations
It is characteristic of Papert's microworlds that they should have an
open-ended quality. A set of powerful ideas are available, the
application of which will support a rich variety of creative activity.
A relatively clean working surface is supplied and pupils direct
action towards it. In this version of computer-based learning, the
power of the computer to manage symbolic activity is harnessed to
allow the pupil real control over a given domain of knowledge.
However, this form of control can be realized in more circumscribed
ways. Learners can interact with more closed systems and, in doing
so, instructive experiences are made to occur within them.
In such cases, the symbol-manipulating power of the technology is
exploited to offer simulations of real-world systems. Computers
might, for example, simulate a stock exchange for students of
economics; or the behaviour of cell membranes for students of
biology. The promise of such scaled-down experiences lies in their
capability for offering the learner control over the operating
parameters of some system. In this way, a system's characteristics
may be explored through experimentation. It is likely that simulation
software will become more commonplace as multimedia technology
develops.
An early indication of what is possible with such resources - and a
theoretical context for evaluating it - is available in the work of
the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (1990). This group
have employed videodisc technology to create "macrocontexts" for
learning. They encourage the idea of "anchored instruction": a form
of educational practice that is strongly oriented to exercising
knowledge in rich and meaningful settings of authentic practice. The
learner is invited to control some domain of interest in a manner that
more resembles the experience we associate with apprenticeship mode of
learning.
Exposure to simulations is seen by some as a solution to slow progress
being made within the computer-as-tutor tradition. A limitation of
many intelligent tutoring systems may be their approach to the
representation and the communication of expert knowledge in the domain
being taught. Such representation is typically guided by ideas from
artificial intelligence. AI stresses the *rule*-based nature of a
knowledge domain. This perspective encourages learning resources that
tend to support the integration of rules describing families of "if x
then y" relationships (thought to describe some domain of knowledge).
Riesbeck and Schank (1991) have argued that this form of
representation may be impractical for domains of any complexity. More
important, they argue (1989) that rule-based reasoning may not be a
good model of everyday intelligent thinking.
Instead, they propose that human reasoning can be described as
"case-based" (Schank, 1982). Expertise arises from dense experience
with representative and discrete problems from particular domains of
practice. Such human reasoning demands a particular kind of resource
to support new learning: access to a library of concrete situations
(cases) in which problem solving can be exercised. Creative teaching
would then partly be located in the effective 'indexing' (Reisbeck and
Schank, 1991) of these experiences - such that they were readily
retrievable for reference in dealing with novel circumstances. The
principle of case-based reasoning suggests that traditions of
computer-as-tutor and computer-as-simulation could move closer
together. At present the relevant theoretical debates underlying this
possibility remain in progress.
One worry aspect of learning from simulations concerns the possibility
of over-simplifying complex systems. This is often inevitable if a
simulation must meet the finite possibilities of delivery on
microcomputers. The necessary simplifications may convey a
misleadingly straightforward impression of how a multi-variate,
open-ended system works in the real world. This is particularly
problematic in situations where attempts are made to simulate systems
whose real behaviour is governed by significant human agency. The
microcomputer may force too rigid a representation of how typical
human intervention is organized. So, it may be seriously misleading
if simulations imply that systems incorporating substantive social
management are, for that reason, governed by rule-like and planful
processes: often it is clear that they are not (cf. Suchman, 1987).
Finally, it is apparent that these forms of computer-based learning
environments must share some of the characteristics (and attractions)
noted above for microworld environments. They offer the novice a
strong discovery-oriented experience and they are engagingly
interactive. They have not yet attracted a great tradition of
evaluative research. But, as with microworlds, we are likely to be
anxious as to the necessary role of experts (teachers) in sustaining
and consolidating this kind of learning and contextualising it within
a broader classroom experience. Sheingold, Kane and Endreweit (1983)
show that such integration does not typically happen. Moreover,
Laurillard (1992) has highlighted the poor showing of simulation
software in situations where it is not carefully integrated into a
broader context of socially-organized teaching.
(4) The toolbox metaphor: computer-as-tool
It is common to characterize the computer as a "general purpose"
machine. We say this because it can be fashioned (programmed) to
serve a wide range of human purposes. In other words, there is an
important sense in which it can be said to provide a "toolbox".
Indeed, when we now think of computers most of us are likely to think
first of word processors, spreadsheets, databases, applications for
graphics or design and so on. This naturally supplies a
straightforward reason why we might encourage such use of computers
within education. The tools they create are in widespread use within
everyday contexts. Thus, quite simply, children must be helped to
control and understand them within the preparatory settings of school.
Surveys reveal that teachers are increasingly seeing the educational
potential of the technology in terms of these tool-like
characteristics (Becker, 1991).
However, strategies for fostering experience with computer-based tools
will be motivated by more than just narrow vocational concerns. The
falling cost of new technology has had the effect of creating a
greater continuity between school and work - in that powerful tools
that would previously only have been encountered in specialist
settings are now accessible in classrooms. It would be disappointing
if these tools were only used in ways that mirrored too literally the
particular demands of the world of work. Fortunately, the *content*
of problems tackled with these powerful new tools can reflect
interests that are actually nearer the world of childhood. Thereby,
it is possible to respect the widely-accepted educational principle
that problems posed for children should be authentic - drawn from
their own experience and reflecting their own concerns. Children may
well be more engaged by information-managing activities if what they
discover (through summarising, systematising, communicating etc)
describes something immediate to their own experience. The
possibility of provoking such vivid discoveries means that computers
offer teachers a valuable opportunity: to foster within even young
children powerful skills relating to the organization and
communication of data.
However, the educational deployment of computers in this guise is more
controversial than that characterisation might imply. Here, I shall
identify two troublesome perspectives associated with the
computer-as-tool conception. The first is a worry that pupils enjoy
less direct encounters with the world they are learning about. The
second is a particular theoretical perspective on learning that the
tool metaphor encourages - one that I find problematic.
The arguments arising from the first of these concerns are located
around the concept of "mediated experience". Mediation is one way to
capture the multi-faceted character of this technology. The computer
mediates our action - it exists between us and the world and
transforms our activity upon the world. For one thing, it encourages
us to act upon that more elusive quantity: information. This mediated
quality of computer-based activities has attracted some critical
commentary, particularly as it is realized in the contexts of early
education. Thus, in a collection of sceptical essays edited by Sloan
(1984), Cuffaro (1984) voices a recurrent concern that computer-using
pupils are being deprived of the opportunity for "direct" manipulative
activity on their world. Interactions with computers are supposed to
render their experience increasingly "indirect". Most worrying
perhaps, the more powerful these tools, the more they can be
accessible to younger and younger children (Crook, 1992b).
Cuffaro, and other critics in this collection, make frequent reference
to the Piagetian interpretation of cognitive development. Piaget's
commitment to the importance of direct manipulative activity on the
world is cited with approval as the foundation of discovery learning.
It is this foundation that is seen as threatened by the mediational
status of computer tools. Evidently, it is right to be cautious here.
As noted in remarks above regarding computers furnishing full-blown
simulations: access to a simulation should not undermine efforts to
give pupils more direct encounters with the system modelled. Not
enjoying direct interactions may create a misleading impression as to
the simplicity and self-contained nature of that system.
However, the force of this critique turns on cases where computers are
made to function as *alternative* tools to those traditionally used in
children's exploratory activity. Certainly, if computer graphics
packages became a commonplace *substitute* for work with, say, paints
or charcoal, then we might feel valuable creative opportunities were
being lost to pupils. However, we should allow the possibility that
these computer tools can offer a different and distinctive kind of
experience in graphic media (to take the present example): an
experience that will complement others. For instance, my own
research (1991b) on young children using screen painting programmes
suggest these tools may cultivate a more editorial attitude towards
graphic creations. Thus, the opportunity to delete or "undo" painting
strokes seems to reinforce active review and revision of a developing
composition - much as a word processing tool does for the editing of
text. This may be just one distinctive feature of experience with
graphic work in the computer medium.
Deploying computers in this way - to *extend* the experience of
drawing, writing, classifying or calculating - seems an exciting
enterprise. The mediating status of this technology is something we
may come to terms with: we may become sensitised to its effective
management. The second controversy arising from the tool metaphor
concerns certain more overarching theoretical attitudes that it
encourages. It encourages a line of theorising that I find
problematic: in particular, the view claiming that such experience
with computer tools have very general effects on the thinking of those
who use them. We can better see this possibility with respect to a
working example.
In writing the present text, I am using a computer in its capacity as
word processor. The tool-like character of the device allows me to
engage in various useful manipulative activities. Thus, I can
certainly have my spelling checked to some advantage. But I can also
"manage" the overall text in a more flexible manner. So, I might
organize material into headed sections: then, by using a pointer on an
index of headings at the start of a document, I can easily move around
my text. Or, I can shuffle sections into a more optimal organization.
I can refer to files containing notes or references; both of which are
visible in windows "behind" my main text. I can import material
between these areas. Is imparting to students fluency with this kind
of tool "merely" a preparation for employment in settings where it
will be expected? Or does it create more far-reaching cognitive
impacts?
One widely-acknowledged consequence of access to computer tools is the
freeing up of "space" for parallel cognitive activity. Thus, in using
a word processor, I could be said to relieve some of the (humdrum)
burden of text management and release cognitive resources for other
creative work. The idea being that I have a finite reserve of such
resources. The quality of my thinking might benefit if some of it can
be rescued from more routine cognitive commitments and, thereby,
become focussed more effectively. So far, this does not entail a
particularly radical claim about the impact of experience in using
such tools. It could be said merely to clarify just why experience
with such technology will be prized in the world of work: the tool is
effective and useful. But there is a more radical claim that can be
made about the experience of coming to control it.
Suppose that expertise with certain tools leaves us equipped with new
tools of *thought*. This point is made energetically in one recent
book reviewing the effective application of computers to early
education (Underwood and Underwood, 1990). These authors propose
that an important focus of computer-based activities is 'to equip
children with a toolkit of basic mental skills' (p. 29). This
perspective is not without its problems. However, it is a compelling
idea; one that has been argued with particular effect in a recent
paper by Salomon, Perkins and Globerson (1991). They make a useful
distinction relating to the "effects" associated with computers as
students use them. The various products of student activity can be
seen in terms of effects achieved *with* computers or in terms of the
effects *of* computers. In the first case, we note that some creative
product has depended upon a working partnership with a machine. That
machine has taken over lower level activities associated with the task
and allowed the student to do the whole thing more economically, more
efficiently, more imaginatively, or whatever (cf. the example of text
processing rehearsed above). However, the whole enterprise may
generate what Salomon et al (1991) refer to as a "cognitive residue".
In which case, students walk away from the experience with new (or
more finely honed) tools in their cognitive toolkits (Salomon, 1988a,
1993). So, in other settings - including those that do not
incorporate the computer as a prop - more powerful intellectual work
can get done.
Returning to the example of using word processing technology: we might
suppose that a cognitive residue is imparted by coming to control
the device. This supports the subsequent manipulation of text -
including work done *off* the computer - and will be to the benefit of
cognitive skills associated with the general management of ideas in
written form, including their effective communication. We might even
consider that the experience of acting upon text in this way heightens
our sensitivity to the written word as a manipulable quantity and, for
example, cultivates a richer sense of audience as we compose.
In summary, the metaphor of computer-as-tool is a powerful one and
provocative in at least two ways. Firstly, it draws our attention to
the mediating role of technology. Some commentators have expressed
concern about this: worrying that it deflects the learner's experience
from concrete exploratory activity. However, viewing this
technology as a mediational means will be a useful idea to
which I shall want to return later. Secondly, others have suggested
that the consequences of experience with computer-based tools may
include cognitive residues - new tools of an intellectual kind for
interpreting the world. I shall also return to this idea; although
with a less positive response towards it.
Both of these themes will be taken up in later Chapters, along with
others that have been highlighted in the present general review of
implementation metaphors. I shall conclude the present chapter by
highlighting a recurring concern that integrates several problematic
issues mentioned in so far - namely, the relation of new technology to
the social quality of educational experience.
THE SOCIAL FRAMEWORK OF COMPUTER EXPERIENCE
Under this heading we confront some of the core concerns that motivate
the present book. A good number of the implementation controversies
that have been reviewed above can be usefully considered in terms of
tensions between new technology and the *social* quality of
educational settings. Numerous commentators have cautioned against
technological determinism in applying computers to education. For
example, Bowers (1988) and Noble (1991) each explore within
substantial monographs the non-neutrality of information technology as
it has been developed within education. They argue that this
technology does not "simply" serve human interests in some benign
fashion: it actively transforms human relations.
It is important to acknowledge and act upon this state of affairs. My
own view is that its consequences are not inevitably to be regretted.
Indeed, a significant challenge is to recognize the transformational
effects of new technology and, thereby, mobilize them towards
realizing goals that we regard as precious. If we miss this challenge
there is some danger that the medium will be seized and used to
support forms of educational practice that many may find
unwelcome. In this section, I shall review some straightforward ways
in which there can be said to exist a "social" dimension to the
development of computers for educational purposes.
(i) The reproduction of inequalities
An early but recurring strand of critical commentary relating to
computers in schools dwells upon the irony of equipping so many
children with skills for jobs that will be scarcely available in the
world beyond school (cf. Noble, 1991; Robins and Webster, 1987).
Yet this is a concern that might be voiced very widely in relation to
educational practice: the *special* status of information technology
in this respect is no longer so obvious. For most pupils, the
learning they do that involves computers is more through them than
about them. That is, the technology impinges very broadly on the
curriculum, its use involving more than the teaching of specialized
knowledge about technology itself. However, its generic quality gives
rise to another strand of criticism.
If computers really are a wide-ranging resource for learners, then we
must be wary that their deployment does not serve to *amplify*
existing patterns of disadvantage (Olson, 1988). Evidently, there is
a straightforward way in which the technology is likely to be divisive
in this sense: it demands significant financial investment and the
opportunities for funding will be distributed unevenly within
education systems. Surveys of the present distribution of computers
in schools reveal a 10:1 ratio of variation between the best and least
well equipped schools (POST, 1991).
Moreover, this is a technology that can be differentially available as
a resource in children's own homes. Educational advantage arising
from such domestic access is evidently a possibility. However, we
should note two observations that suggest it may not be a significant
source of inequality. Firstly, ownership of home computers appears to
have reached a peak - at least, for the present generation of
technology. The UK General Household Survey indicates that around 20%
of households own a computer but that this figure has barely changed
between 1985 and 1991 (OPCS, 1991). Because prices have come down
across this period, these statistics are telling. They suggest
consumers have discovered that general-purpose computers do not much
enrich family life. One form of such enrichment might have involved
the support of educational agendas within children's home experience.
Yet there is some suggestion that this is not a role the technology is
currently playing. Giacquinta and Lane (1989) studied how computers
were used in 51 (US) families with school-aged children. Of the 113
children involved, most had no access at all to educational software
at home: those that did made very rare use of it. This is a
provocative observation that partially allays our present concern
about reproducing inequalities - although the research could usefully
be replicated with wider samples and in other cultures.
In the end, however, these are all observations that are very
generally true for educational resourcing at home and school; it
remains to be seen whether computers emerge as a particularly telling
differential. There are more subtle senses in which the technology may
reproduce inequalities.
One is in respect of gender. A number of surveys reveal that girls do
not perceive computers as being so much "for them" as do boys
(Durndell, 1991; Fife-Shaw, Breakwell, Lee and Spencer, 1986; Hoyles,
1988; Hughes et al, 1987). Moreover, their attitude to using the
technology may become increasingly negative as they proceed through
school. Various surveys show the percentage of women pursuing
computer science as an undergraduate subject is actually falling
(Newton and Beck, 1993).
Scott, Cole and Engel (1992) provide a review of work on this topic
and articulate a widespread concern regarding its implications.
Chivers (1987) identifies the problem as present in a number of
contemporary cultures and also discusses some of the possible measures
that we might adopt to tackle it. There is some doubt just how early
this differential perception and interest sets in. Lipinski, Nida,
Shade and Watson (1986) report that boys in a preschool setting spent
more time on a computer activity than girls. On the other hand, Essa
(1987) finds no such distinction among preschoolers and Crook and
Steele (1987) report no gender differences in time spent using a
cafeteria-style computer activity maintained in the Reception class of
a primary school. The problem invites more research. However, we may
say that gender-based attitude differences are not *convincingly*
present at the start of schooling: they must somehow be cultivated
within the early school years.
Scott et al (1992) consider a further sense in which the application
of this technology may be socially divisive (see also LCHC (1989)).
They note that there is some evidence to suggest that the type of
software favoured in different educational settings can reflect the
educational advantage or disadvantage of the pupils (cf. Becker and
Sterling, 1987). They caution, in particular, against a trend whereby
the less innovative software (eg., drill and skill programmes) are
over-represented in the experience of disadvantaged communities. Both
this discrimination and that associated with gender should certainly
be viewed carefully and attract more comprehensive documentation.
Despite its significance, this sense of "social context" is not
central to the more interpersonal concerns of the present book.
Issues identified in the following two subsections however are .
(ii) Computers and social development
Whether encountered within education or elsewhere, at least two
features of computers may exert unwelcome influence on children's
early social development - that is, on the development of their
capacities for entering into a world of social relationships. The
first feature is the apparently compulsive attraction this technology
can exert over many users (Levy, 1984; Kidder, 1981; Shotton, 1989;
Turkle, 1984; Weizenbaum, 1976). The second arises from the quality
of "intelligence" that we tend to identify within computer
interaction. Contact with this, it is feared, might encourage a
mechanistic interpretation of *human* activity or, more generally,
blur important distinctions between ourselves and our machines. At
least two consequences arise in relation to social development:
children's' social cognitions (their *thinking* about the social
domain) may be overly influenced by the mechanistic or computation
metaphor (Boden, 1981; Brod, 1984; Papert, 1980). In addition, they
may be drawn towards too dedicated or absorbing an engagement with
this highly interactive and responsive technology. They thereby risk
entering a socially reclusive world (Boden, 1977; Bontinck, 1986;
Simons, 1985).
I have reviewed these possibilities elsewhere (Crook, 1992b) and
concluded that such fears have been overstated. Firstly, many of them
depend upon a particular conception of computer use: one
that indeed can evoke self-contained and compulsive involvement -
namely, computer programming. It is true that absorption in the
writing of programming code may have preoccupied an earlier generation
of 'hollow-eyed youths' (Weizenbaum, 1976), but the present generation
of users will encounter computers in a form more akin to Norman's
(1986) conception of 'convivial tools'. Secondly, there is some
question as to whether children really are so readily seduced by
psychological metaphors in their thinking about computers (cf. Hughes
et al, 1987). Finally, Shotton (1989) has documented an intimate
study of dedicated (adult) computer hobbyists and paints a picture of
their involvement that is merely suggestive of very many other
innocent recreational enthusiasms.
These remarks relate very generally to young people's experience of
computers. However, there is a species of this general concern that
is rather more focussed on computers encountered in educational
contexts. Murphy and Pardeck (1985), for example, dwell upon the
dangers of a mechanistic model of mentality being inadvertently
fostered within classroom experience. Sloan (1984) cautions the
danger of 'relegating feelings to the realm of the peripheral in
education' (p. 543) and regrets the mechanistic imagery that
characterises computer culture. My own view is that vulnerability to
these dangers has been greater among professional psychologists than
among school children. Whatever may have been the curriculum emphasis
in earlier educational applications, contemporary encounters with
classroom technology are now much richer in their variety. They less
easily invite pupils into a focussed preoccupation with metaphysical
issues.
Nevertheless, there remains a real strand of concern regarding
children's social experience that does arise in the particular context
of computers within education. It is more directly concerned with the
process of learning itself and I will consider it in the final section
of the present overview of issues.
(iii) The social quality of learning
Kreuger, Karger and Barwick (1989) identify the solitary quality
of much microcomputer-based learning when they warn against the
cultivation of 'thought in isolation' (p. 113). They comment: 'What is
learned, then, is passivity and alienation from oneself and others,
and that the most fruitful relationships with people will be as
passive and impersonal as the solitary interaction with the computer'
(114). Cuban (1986) expresses similar concern:
In the fervent quest for precise rationality and technical
efficiency, introducing to each classroom enough computers to tutor
and drill children can dry up that emotional life, resulting in
withered and uncertain relationships.
This worry over the isolation of the computer-based *learner* is
commonplace in critical commentaries of how educational technology is
currently deployed (eg. Baker, 1985; Moore, 1993).
In respect of one problematic issue discussed above - the slow uptake
of innovative practices based on new technology - Cuban further
suggests a tension that exists for teachers confronting pressure to
develop computer-based work. That tension arises from their
perception of how the technology is to be used: its deployment seems
at odds with a strong professional commitment to the *interpersonal*
quality of education.
Reflecting on the models of implementation reviewed above, it is
apparent that such concerns are well founded. The computer-as-tutor
metaphor seems quite explicit in its implication that the teacher's
role might be vulnerable to substitution. In its popular
representation, this is the technology of the journalist's "desktop"
teacher. It is the image that will haunt any teacher who encountered
the stultifying example of the behaviorist's teaching machine.
However, the perceptions of journalists are stimulated by the
commentary of educationalists themselves. The often-cited view
expressed by Suppes still has some appeal:
One can predict that in a few more years millions of school children
will have access to what Philip of Macedon's son Alexander enjoyed as
a royal prerogative: the personal services of a tutor as well-informed
and responsive as Aristotle. (Suppes, 1966, p. 207).
Surely another misjudged prediction, but the popular interest in
computers as substitutes for the services of a tutor remains real
enough.
The computer-as-pupil metaphor also leaves underspecified the place of
social interaction between teachers and learners. This style of
computer use is firmly located within the discovery learning tradition
of educational theory - as has been commented above in relation to the
ubiquitous example of Logo. The interactive opportunities of much
open-ended software of this kind may be particularly effective in
sustaining pupils' task engagement. This, in turn, may suggest less
tutorial involvement on the part of a teacher. Thus, Papert's
presentation of Logo in *Mindstorms* (1980) includes sparse
consideration of how teachers do participate productively within Logo
learning. The stronger impression that is felt from his account is
one of the affordances within the software for spontaneous discoveries
on the part of the independent learner. We shall see that this
dislocation of the activity from the interpersonal dimension of
learning is not what was intended by Papert. But perhaps his vigorous
challenge to the "controlling" image of traditional educational
software was bound to shift concerns towards stressing the *autonomy*
of the learner.
We shall see that the image of the solitary learner sketched in the
quotations earlier has been resisted by teachers in practice. This is
certainly the case in early education, where the usual impression is
one of computers being absorbed into the familiar bustle of primary
class life. The main strategy to achieve this has been a preference
to organize computer activities as group work (Jackson et al, 1986,
1988). However, the "social" character of effective educational
experience is a more delicate quality than that conveyed by bustle
alone. The view to be developed later in this book is that computers
require us to consider more carefully the nature and scope of
"collaboration" as it may be organized within education. In
particular, to judge how far the social energy that might be visible
in classrooms incorporates a kind of interaction that has great
significance for learning and cognitive development. To pursue this,
we must outline a theoretical perspective that puts the social
dimension at the centre point of educational experience. This will be
taken up in the next chapter.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
In the very short space of the past 10 years, considerable effort has
been invested in establishing the microcomputer as a significant
resource within education. This effort has been evident within
primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. There must be few
educational media that have been promoted with such energy (and
funding). The reasons for this seem to be a mixture of two
commitments on the part of educational politicians and practitioners.
First, it is considered important that children should now encounter
powerful new information technologies at school - where they may
become comfortable and confident with the medium before entering a
working world where it so pervasive. The second reason for all this
effort rests on a belief that the technology can transform learning
and teaching across a variety of existing curriculum areas: it is a
very general educational resource.
There is a current of opinion amongst close observers of this scene
that the impact so far has been modest. One measure of a shortfall is
the poor outcome of training efforts aimed at encouraging teachers to
incorporate new technology into their work. Many teachers are slow to
gain confidence in making active use of computers. Perhaps there is a
(fatal) irony in asking teachers - a profession where self-assurance
about what one knows and does is paramount - to incorporate a
technology of such patent complexity. Mastering it only at the level
of running isolated applications is bound to feel unsatisfactory,
especially in the (all too likely) event of unscripted technical
problems.
In my own experience, it has always seemed that the educational
application of new technology can too often have a "bolted on" feel of
just that kind. Some of the literature reviewed in this chapter lends
support to this as a general view of present practice. The
educational thinking that lies behind the main categories of
application do little to challenge this setting apart of computer
activities. If the computer is conceptualized as another kind of
tutor, it is highly likely to be put to work independently of any
human tutors in the environment - such an economy is the implicit
advantage in this conception. However, the other models of computer
implementation that have been discussed here invite similar
marginalising. In those cases, the problem may arise from the
powerful interactivity the medium offers: its simply too easy for
pupils to sustain independent activity.
I am drawing attention to the way in which computer-based learning
might readily become decoupled from the mainstream of classroom life.
In fact, we may have mixed reactions to this. So, for example, to
point out that a setting for learning is effective in sustaining
independent activity might be taken to define a quite desirable state
of affairs. Yet, I believe that many practitioners will also become
uneasy about learning that readily excludes the involvement of others
- teachers or peers. Surveys of teachers reacting to the introduction
of classroom computers tend to support this (eg. Bliss et al, 1986;
Lichtman, 1979; Woodrow, 1987). Cuban (1986), in particular, traces
much of the suspicion among teachers to this concern for the isolating
property of computer-based learning. I believe our thinking about
this tension between independent and socially-organized learning needs
to be guided by an overarching theoretical perspective. I shall offer
such a framework in the following chapter.