A decade ago I wrote a review of Larry Cuban's book critical of the claims about bringing computers into classrooms. Interestingly, it was the most viewed review over a period of several years on the Education Review web site.
The Education Review is a wonderful site for giving open access to reviews of most of the books published on education--well worth subscribing to.
Certainly, people came the review because of interest in Cuban's ideas, not because I wrote the review. He is undoubtedly the most significant education historian who is critical of technology in education.
I started the review by describing the ambitions of the presidents of Mexico and Cuba about how computer technology would transform teaching practice. Looking back over the decade since the review was published, I have to say that Cuban's point in the title of his book still resonates, not just in the Cuba, Mexico and the U.S., but here in Canada as well.
Cuban, Larry. (2001). Oversold and Underused:
Computers in the Classroom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
256 pages
$27.95 (cloth) ISBN 067400602
$27.95 (cloth) ISBN 067400602
Reviewed by Larry Kuehn
University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
June 6, 2002
When he
was running for office in 2000, Vicente Fox—the current president of Mexico
from the right-wing party PAN—included in his education platform the placing of
computers in every school. In outlining new directions for education in Cuba in
the new century, Fidel Castro said he wants—that's right—computers in every
school. Will computers in every school transform teaching practice in Mexico or
Cuba? Not likely, if the experience in already computer-rich Silicon Valley is
any indicator. To find out if computers are changing education practice,
Stanford historian of technology in education, Larry Cuban, took a look at the
impact of computers in the community where extensive integration seems most
likely. He looked into the preschools, Kindergartens and secondary schools
where the people who develop the new technologies send their children. He also
looked at Stanford University, an institution that feeds the developers of the
high tech industries of the Silicon Valley region of California.
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