The Great Debate: Effectiveness of Technology in Education

In the article The Great Debate, author Patricia Deubel does just that. She brings up points of debate in using technology in the classroom and in the world at large. Toping the list are things like the ambiguity of terms used when discussing education and technology. Next she brings up the fact that necessarily technology changes thinking; quicker access to more information that must be processed faster. She states that for technology to have any chance of being effective its use must be regular and integral to the program. That is, it should not seem extraneous to what is being learned.

I understand what Deubel is doing; she concedes that there are two sides to the argument on technology use in schools and tries to clarify just where the points of dissention are while still trying to sway the reader for the use of technology. To be sure of this one only has to read the sentence “We know that using technology in any form will not necessarily improve education, but its informed implementation moves us closer to eliminating the "one-size-fits al’ approach to teaching and learning.” Deubel wants us to use technology in an informed manner. Wouldn’t it be better then for those who do not prefer to be informed of technological advances and implementations in the classroom to not teach with it? As we try to eliminate the “one-size-fits all” teaching method, isn’t it also important that there may not be a “one-size-fits all” approach to teaching?

Deubel, Patricia. (November 2007) The Great Debate: Effectiveness of Technology in Education. The Journal. Last accessed June 9, 2008 from http://www.thejournal.com/articles/21544