Connecting School Reform to Online Instruction in K-12 Classrooms: The Next New Thing | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Connecting School Reform to Online Instruction in K-12 Classrooms: The Next New Thing | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Connecting School Reform to Online Instruction in K-12 Classrooms: The Next New Thing

by larrycuban

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Why have the results of computers entering schools in the past thirty years so disappointed champions of high-tech?
From Europe (OECD Report 2008) to the U.S., from developing nations buying One-Laptop-Per-Child (OLPC) to developed nations counting on schools preparing children and youth for a high-tech world, the same dreary statistics and conclusions emerge: teacher and student use of high-tech devices in daily lessons is minimal and even where usage is optimal, student outcomes in improved achievement and other indicators fall well below expectations.
Blame for this dismal outcome has fallen on resistant teachers, traditional administrators, mindless policymakers, eager philanthropists, and self-promoting vendors. Taking a step back from finger-pointing and the self-indulgent I-told-you-so is hard to do since bloggers and pundits offer splendid one-liners and quotable phrases that make for great bumper stickers. But if analysis means breaking down a problem into its constituent parts and reassembling those parts in ways that explain better what is going on than do slogans, then taking