Peggy Grant , Ph.D., NCREL program associate/research, Center for Literacy suggests not ALL technology enhances learning.
Grant:
I remember when I was teaching at the secondary school, we had a reading teacher at the high school who had a whole room full of computers. And he was everybody's favorite teacher because he lined up all these kids who couldn't read at these computers, and they just sat there and did these little things all -- all these workbook things on the screen all day.
And everyone -- he got all kinds of credit for being technology and using technology. And, and it was kind of cutting edge, although reading machines and that kind of stuff have been around for a long time. When you -- back from the days of slide projectors so I think it's so easy to fall into that, to think of technology or computers as being a substitute for a teacher giving direct instruction. And I think that when teachers look on it that way, then it becomes very problematic as far as -- personally I think it's more trouble than it's worth.
I also think that videos usually tend to be counter-educational the way they are used in, in schools. In the schools where I taught where the lights were out showing videos, the kids -- sometimes find them entertaining but not usually. They're used to watching them. I think we have to be very careful about how we use the different kinds of media and technology that are available to us. And they cannot be used effectively, in my opinion, in a traditional teacher centered classroom, that showing a video is not necessarily learning.