Our+Critique

Our Group Critique
If you want to start a fight, throw a copy of Mark Cuban's book "Oversold and Underused." into a room of Instructional technologists. Cuban's conclusion is that a loose alliance of education reformers, business interests, politicians and others have been pushing technology onto schools in the mistaken hope that it will transform education. He claims that there is little evidence that this strategy works and to prove his claim he observed several schools in Silicon Valley.

Our group feels that Cuban is on target with some of his ideas but not as prescient with others. We share his concern that society is changing it's view of school from an institution to produce good citizens to a training center to drive the future economy. Test scores are not everything and we should be wary of people who try to sell us technology that is "guaranteed" to increase them.

On the other hand, we worry that Cuban look at a big enough picture. His study only looked at a small sample of American schools. While that sample did come from the technological epicenter of the U.S., it may be too small to be representative. For example, elementary schools were not even observed. Cuban might be overstating some problems and missing others. A related problem is that technology and technology use change at the speed of light. An updated version of the book would be useful.

Finally, the real story is somewhat more complex than the one Cuban tells. He takes a "wait and see," attitude, claiming that schools aren't likely to change their basic practices and that we don't have enough evidence that "technology" helps students. But what level of technology should we hold at until the point is proven? Blackboards? Whiteboards? Overhead projectors? Stone tablets? Our group believes that the technology alone is just a tool. To change schools for the better we need a change in ideas and a commitment to support and train teachers to be more student focused. Technology can and should be a major part of that new focus.

What did individual group members think of the book. click below to find out. Chris Miranda Jennifer Emory Robbie