Computers in the classroom

Keith Noel, Contributor

IN OUR society, part of the role of a minister of government seems to be to exude confidence in all of his plans for the country's future. I listen to the minister of education when he speaks of his vision for education and, while I admire his earnestness and his energy, I am worried by the certainty and confidence in his advisers.

I say this because I believe that a careful examination of what is happening in today's society, in today's schools and in the world of education in general, cannot lead any education planner in the direction of certitude and confidence that what is planned will turn out to be best for the country.

Look, for example, at the idea of the use of computers in the classroom. We are all certain that this is the way to go and applaud when we see children growing more and more familiar with this tool at increasingly earlier ages. My grandchildren and my brothers' and sister's pre-teen grandchildren are all as comfortable with the tool as I am, and many of them are more proficient at its use. More and more children are doing classroom assignments on the computer. In some schools, these assignments are no longer printed, but emailed to the teacher. Subject and class chat rooms are becoming more acceptable as a way for students to share ideas. All of this seems good. We are 'using the technology to enhance education'. Hooray!

But pause. Recently, in the state of Indiana in the United States of America, it was announced that schools may no longer be required to teach children to write and that students would focus on typing. It seems such an obvious acceptance of the status quo in education that one is inclined to applaud the state's education planners for their forward-thinking. But there is one caveat. It leads one to conclude that by the time these children reach the age where they are to write public examinations, the exam rooms would have to be equipped with computers. OK. No problem. But then think. That state would then graduate students who were unable to write! Is this what we want? (Would they have at least been taught how to sign their names!)

But maybe that is where we are supposed to go. So, in 50 short years, we would have moved from an era where penmanship was taught as a subject in primary school to an era where students do not write at all. And in this time of 'spellcheck', educators will have to reconsider the notion of spending so much time teaching children how to deduce the likely spelling of a strange word that they have heard.

Serious implications

And then 'grammar check' will force them even to reconsider the need to teach children complex rules of grammar. At least we will have to find new ways to teach these things in the new ethos. It may, indeed, be the inevitable route for educators, but I think there are so many implications to this that we will have to be very careful before we rush headlong into this strange new future.

There are other changes that the 'computers-in-education' era has brought upon us. When I began teaching (more than 40 years ago), it was fairly easy to explain to students what plagiarism was and why it was a bad thing. It is not so easy now. Computers have made it so much easier and custom has made it begin to look like a rather good idea! And now, if you set an assignment, your students can go to places on the Internet, where they can ask someone to draft the essay for them, or even to write the whole thing! In an era when internal assessment is a part of the grading system, it is becoming more difficult to be sure that your students' final grades are a true reflection of their worth.

These are just a few of the concerns that the modern education planner has to consider. One would also need to discuss the implications of the growing lack of command of English language that the new era has brought and, of course, on its implication to the reading of novels, essays and poetry.

But that is another debate!

Keith Noel is an educator. Send comments to columns@gleanerjm.com