Viewpoint
Robert Smol
Time to get computers out of the classrooms
Last Updated: Friday, October 2, 2009 | 3:50 PM ET
By Robert Smol, special to CBC News
When I entered the teaching profession in the early 1990s, experts told us that computers, and this really cool thing called the web, were going to revolutionize education. They were quite right.
We were also told back then that computers and the web were going to make the students of the future much smarter and more able to research, reason, discern and express themselves than any generation that came before. Wrong!
Now, having taught the first cohort of students to have spent its entire academic life around computers and the internet, I believe that it is time to reconsider the benefits of computers and information technology in primary and secondary education.
Biology class in a Montreal high school in 2006. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press) Don't get me wrong — I am no technophobe.
I have taught computer courses in the past, use the web extensively in my own research, and write for IT news outlets as a journalist.
But thanks to my non-computer education, I still fulfil these same functions with the help of a blackboard, pen and paper, and the local library.
The same cannot be said of my students, many of whom have not developed the research and writing skills that would let them cope easily in any area that is not digitally driven.
With the coming of computers and the internet, we in the education business seem to have assumed that traditional thinking, research and writing skills would somehow always be there.
But these skills need to be developed over time and with practice, and the computer and web are proving themselves to be not always up for the job.
So here are the main concerns that this former IT-crazed educator is feeling at the moment.
Losing the ability to research
There is something to be said for the ability to scan a 500-page work of non-fiction and find what you need by using the index and searching the pages for key words and phrases.
Indeed, I would say that my biggest single asset as a teacher, journalist and former army intelligence officer was the ability to find useful information where it wasn't always obvious.
That was a skill that came from many years of scanning books, reference material and microfilm in non-virtual libraries.
Today's students, highly dependent on search engines for their research, have not developed the ability to identify, prioritize and discern information.
Ask a high school student today to find information in their own textbook or in a newspaper that is not online and you are likely to encounter blank stares and painful groans.
For today's students, the web has bred a sense of information entitlement where they expect the correct information to somehow come to them rather than the other way around.
In other words, a "Wikipedification" of research is going on that is blurring both the value and the accuracy of what these students are turning up.
In practical terms, this means that the "hits" that come up first — which are all too often variations on the same theme — are taken as authoritative sources, without any real consideration as to where the original material comes from and what it is based on.
As a result, I will often find students basing their academic research on blogs or rants in discussion forums instead of on more reliable academic sources largely because personal blogs and discussion forums are simple to understand and easier to read.
Writing with accuracy
With these factors in play, it should not come as a surprise that plagiarism continues to be a serious problem in school reports. In fact, in my experience, it seems to be on the rise.
A generation weaned on cut and paste and free downloads seems to have a very difficult time understanding that access to the web does not automatically give the user any special ownership over that information.
When it comes to their own output, some think that the old-fashioned notion of being able to write legibly with a high degree of accuracy is not that important. So be it.
But what I will never accept is the way in which the corrective spell-checking functions of word processing programs have effectively absolved students of their accountability for spelling and grammar.
Every year I encounter more and more university-bound senior students who do not know the difference between words such as "their" and "there" or "too" and "to," since word processing programs don't always pick up the error.
"Sew bye virtue of spell Czech their wood seam too bee nut thing rung width work like this."
Advanced functions
My generation needs to stop paying lip service to the idea that young people today are inherently more technologically savvy. Perhaps that was the case 20 years ago but the gap, if it still exists, is closing rapidly.
Sure, when it comes to downloading music or playing video games, my students can beat me hands down. So what?
The only useful skill I see coming from that is possibly a higher degree of manual dexterity around the keyboard and not much else.
But will a teen enthusiastically take up a new form of computer hardware or software unless it either entertains them or in some way simplifies their work process?
Just try placing the average high school student in front of some highly useful programs such as Excel, or expect them to just take up the more advanced functions of Word, PowerPoint or Photoshop.
Most likely you will not see the same ability or exuberance to outdo old folks like myself who need to master these programs to survive in the real world of business and academia.
Time to reassess
So who is to blame for these lost skills?
I am. More specifically, it is my generation of teachers that has put too much faith in computers and the web and did not consider the skills that would be compromised because of how these tools would be used over time.
Of course, I do not think that computers and information technology should be purged entirely from education.
They always should have a place as an occasional tool that could help students expand and apply the skills that they should be developing with pen and paper and the non-virtual library.
And they probably have a larger role in helping those students whose disabilities demand the use of computers or who go to school in very small communities, like native reserves, without many other resources.
But what does need to be purged forever is our assumption that this digital generation of young people is somehow more intelligent and has a more secure and prosperous future simply by virtue of the fact that they are "so into computers."
Get real!
