Oversold and Underused

by Cuban, Larry

• ISBN13: 9780674011090
• ISBN10: 0674011090
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-30
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

Impelled by a demand for increasing American strength in the new global economy, many educators, public officials, business leaders, and parents argue that school computers and Internet access will improve academic learning and prepare students for an information-based workplace. But just how valid is this argument? In Oversold and Underused, one of the most respected voices in American education argues that when teachers are not given a say in how the technology might reshape schools, computers are merely souped-up typewriters and classrooms continue to run much as they did a generation ago. In his studies of early childhood, high school, and university classrooms in Silicon Valley, Larry Cuban found that students and teachers use the new technologies far less in the classroom than they do at home, and that teachers who use computers for instruction do so infrequently and unimaginatively. Cuban points out that historical and organizational economic contexts influence how teachers use technical innovations. Computers can be useful when teachers sufficiently understand the technology themselves, believe it will enhance learning, and have the power to shape their own curricula. But these conditions can't be met without a broader and deeper commitment to public education beyond preparing workers. More attention, Cuban says, needs to be paid to the civic and social goals of schooling, goals that make the question of how many computers are in classrooms trivial.

Author Biography

Larry Cuban is Professor of Education at Stanford University and past president of the American Educational Research Association

Table of Contents

Introduction: Reforming Schools through Technology	1	(20)
The Setting	21	(15)
Cyberteaching in Preschools and Kindergartens	36	(32)
High-Tech Schools, Low-Tech Learning	68	(31)
New Technologies in Old Universities	99	(32)
Making Sense of Unexpected Outcomes	131	(45)
Are Computers in Schools Worth the Investment?	176	(22)
Appendix: Rationale for Choices of School Levels	198	(4)
Notes	202	(41)
Acknowledgments	243	(2)
Index	245