"For every complex question, there is a simple answer and it's wrong. "

-H. L. Mencken

Everybody, especially CPSR, is talking about the NII. What then are the NII-related issues for education? Access is obviously the primary (and most often cited) concern. It is clear that we must ensure that the information resources are made available to all schools. However, it is equally important not to confuse "equal access to information" with "equal learning potential." Educational and cognitive research definitively show that pedagogy is not that simple.

As always, there is a danger that technology will be seen as the solution to our most pressing and complex problems. This invariably leads to band-aid treatments for very deep wounds. As politically and socially unpalatable as it obviously is: complex problems--with education being about as complex as they come--necessitate comprehensive and complex solutions. For example, the following (taken from a recent newspaper article) presents a potential application of NII technology:

A single physics teacher beamed by satellite or as blips of light on a fiber channel could provide university-quality education to all the 11th grade students in Texas. Teacher's aides on site could help students study for tests; telephones, video cameras and computers could allow for direct interaction with the physics superstar. The courts would get the equality of education they want, because students in the poorest districts would get exactly the same lesson as those in the richest. (emphasis added)

Here we have a scenario where it is assumed that technology can single-handedly solve a very serious problem we have in this country--educational inequity. The author demonstrates a lack of understanding, not about the technology involved, but about education. Learning does not occur simply by presenting and testing on the "correct" material--even if the presenter is a "superstar." It is important to realize that children are not blank slates into which we can pour information. Research clearly shows that students bring initial conceptions to the classroom based on their individual life experiences. Working with these initial conceptions presents the bridging opportunity for showing students how school subjects relate to their own lives--thereby keeping them interested, involved, and learning in a more robust and integrated fashion. Learning occurs when students actively build upon their own knowledge and cooperatively interact with peers and teachers. This student-centered and inquiry-based approach to education (usually labeled "constructivism") then becomes part of the necessary fabric for weaving a technological approach to education. It dramatically changes the tenor of that approach and is also dependent upon factors extending beyond the technology as well.

Of course, many social and economic factors must be taken into account. Referring back to the NII example, sending a video image of a great teacher to poor school districts just isn't going to do the trick. Learning in rich and poor schools will still be remarkably different because of such factors as: the number of students per teacher, the quality of the teachers (often dependent upon what the school district can afford to pay), and the availability of other resources (desks, books, paper, pencil, supplementary materials, laboratory equipment)--not to mention external factors such as whether the students are hungry or are having to deal with drugs and violence on or off campus.

It is obviously beyond the scope of this article to present a comprehensive treatment of educational reform. In fact, true reform represents one of the greatest challenges facing society today. But at the same time, as we forge ahead let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the real problems of education are going to be solved by the NII or any other technological innovation. Therefore, a better approach is to make sure that the way we use technology for education is consistent with what we do know about learning. A few current Internet-based projects can give us a feeling for how the NII could be used in education. (Please note that this is just a small sampling of what's going on around the country.)

The Kids as Global Scientists (KGS) project, based in Boulder, Colorado, has middle school students using the Internet to investigate atmospheric science concepts by analyzing different representations of weather phenomena and communicating with other students from all over the world on relevant issues and real-world phenomena. They have characterized the types of Internet-based knowledge available to their students as today's knowledge (recent information that can be obtained quickly) and interactive knowledge (information that students can obtain by interacting with first-hand sources). KGS builds upon the constructivist approach, recognizing that learning happens only when students can work with and build on their own ideas. Currently, however, says principal investigator, Dr. Nancy Songer, "a large majority of K-12 Internet-available activities do not permit two-way, interactive communication. This encourages a relatively passive model of student interaction which is based on the assumption that others are contributing important knowledge which Our student should know about and use."

To counteract this idea of students as receivers of knowledge, Songer and her research team at the University of Colorado, are developing curricula and software which will make the Internet a "child- focused" resource, one in which students are "empowered to make the Internet an interactive resource which has nodes of information developed, maintained. and focused for themselves."

Learning Through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis), a research project based at Northwestern University, is attempting to transform science education by allowing students to engage in activities that resemble the question-centered, collaborative practice of real scientists. Students study atmospheric and environmental science using state-of-the-art scientific visualization software which has been specifically modified to be an appropriate learning environment. Students are provided with a "collaboratory'' workbench which includes video-teleconferencing, shared software environments, access to Internet resources, a multimedia notebook, and the scientific visualization software. CoVis emphasizes the social nature of learning by encouraging students to become enculturated into a community of scientific practice and explores how networking and remote communication can play an integral role.

Finally, in a unique program at Richmond High School in Richmond, California, junior and senior high school students learn to manage and use a vast array of computer tools, including Internet tools. Here, 125 low-income students in the Computer and Business Partnership Academy essentially run their own computer system. These are students that are not necessarily thinking of going on to college. And typically, such students would get very little exposure to technology--let alone be encouraged to control it. But here, teacher Les Radke teaches all his students to use the simple tools of the Internet (telnet, ftp), as well as Mosaic, gophers, veronica, archie, and WAIS. Some are creating their own MOO. Others are learning HTML and setting up a World Wide Web server (the first thing they're putting on it is a memorial to a recently murdered fellow student). Students serve as the Unix system administrators. and others manage the 10-base-T network in the school. The important thing to note is that these students are in control of technology and their own learning; they're not being controlled.

Although we have been arguing that technology is tar from being a panacea for educational problems, we do believe it can figure prominently in the solution. Indeed, computers offer very unique capabilities for education, and the resources associated with NII, in particular, can be used to augment learning if they are appropriately harnessed to encourage the social nature of learning and allow for individual. interactive access to information.

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