Then there's the example of the province of Ontario's attempt to
establish an educational computer in the mid-1980's, the commercial
platforms of the time being seen to be unacceptable for various reasons.
Called the ICON, or, not unaffectionately, the "bionic beaver", the
provincial government spent millions, in the end with little apparent
lasting value.
Little software was developed for the relatively small user base, and
technological evolution of the platform couldn't keep up with the
rapid advances of commercial PC technologies during the late 80's.
Wikipedia's entry sems to be fairly reliable on this:
"The biggest problem for the machine was a lack of software.
The ICON was originally designed to let teachers create and share
their own lessonware, using a simple hypertext-based system where
pages could either link to other pages or run programs written in "C".
The "anyone can create lessonware" model was rejected by the Ministry
of Education before the ICON shipped (in favour of a model where the
Ministry funded and controlled all lessonware), leaving the ICON with
only the QNX command line interface and the Cemcorp-developed text editor
application." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisys_ICON
See also -
http://www.100megspopup.com/redawa/BIC/BIC2.html
I agree with Michael Gurstein's point that educational bureaucrats
lack any understanding of educational technologies and how they
should be implemented. Furthermore, even where hardware and
software is in place, the majority of teachers will resist using them,
without training and the incentive to reform an outmoded, industrial
era educational system. Attempts to implement eudcational technologies
without a corresponding curriculum reform and considerable teacher
training are like pouring new wine into old bottles and are bound to
fail............Alex Kuskis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gurstein, Michael" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "The DIGITALDIVIDE discussion group" <DIGITALDIVIDE@OWA.BENTON.ORG>
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2005 12:38 PM
Subject: [DDN] Making Computers Useful in Education
A few (computer) lifetimes ago I was actively involved in a number of
programs in Canada bringing computerization to schools. The governments
of the day understood the need for "computers in the schools" -- it was
what everyone else was doing and talking about and of course, it would
lead immediately to improved education, literacy, job skilling and thus
overall economic performance and competitiveness and so on and so on.
So Provincial Departments of Education and particular school districts
went out and spent millions of dollars in purchasing computers,
outfitting state of the art computer labs with ergonomically designed
lighting, chairs, etc. etc.
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