COMPUTERS AS TUTORS:
SOLVING THE CRISIS IN EDUCATION
by
Frederick Bennett, Ph.D.
faben1@concentric.net
941-955-0050
This book has one message: schools can use technology more effectively, and for the welfare of students, teachers and the nation, they must do so.
American businesses have made gigantic strides in the competitive global economy, and a large part of their gain has resulted from better applications of technology. Schools, despite their acquisition of millions of computers, continue to waddle along as they have for eons. They waste the power of these machines and reap negligible educational benefits from them.
Meanwhile, fervent pleas from parents for improved schools result in verbal agreement from educators and politicians but no effective action follows. This dialogue has continued for years, but the difficulties in education remain virtually untouched. Hope of major improvement under present conditions is little more than a fantasy.
Today's technology, if used differently, could bring advances that would improve education dramatically - illiteracy would be eliminated, ordinary students would make massive gains, and restraints on bright students would dissolve. If computers are to be effective in schools, however, major changes must occur and that always frightens many people. Opposition is therefore inevitable.
Some human instructors will object emotionally, fearing that more extensive employment of technology will seriously degrade their position. Their trepidation is understandable but groundless. Although teachers will have to alter their accustomed practices, they will reach a new level of importance, will accomplish more, and will have greater job satisfaction when schools take advantage of the power of computers.
Some parents may also object to technology fearing that an Orwellian world will engulf their children. This fear is also totally false. Computerized education, properly devised, can provide a personal side to education that is impossible today.
Despite the present retarded pace of change in schools, a real revolution can happen. Dramatic evidence of the power of effective computerized education is available in a few places. When parents become aware of this evidence, and when they become cognizant of what computers can do under still better conditions, they, together with other concerned citizens, can force schools to use computers properly. Schooling will become both enjoyable for children and supremely effective. Thereafter, the dire consequences of much of today's education will lessen dramatically.
The necessary prerequisite to this change is thorough discussion of what can be done. This book attempts to hasten the process. It explains why computers have failed to alter education until now, how they should be employed, and the startling gains their appropriate use will bring. I am a clinical psychologist and recount principles of that science to support the arguments favoring better use of these machines. I am also a professional computer programmer and apply knowledge acquired in that role to show the gains that technology can bring to education - gains that may seem like fantasies to anyone who hasn't studied the power and capability of this technology.
Computers can remake education. It is time to begin.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
copyright 1996 Fred Bennett
(A hard copy can be obtained for $10.00 from: FABEN, Inc.,Box 3133, Sarasota, FL 34230)