Chris's+Critique

One major critique is that Cuban is looking at a tiny sample and justifying it by saying "well, they have a lot of tech here in the Valley so they must be representative." I thing this is off base. Some of his points make sense, but the small sample size prevents us from being able to extend them to the whole country. Cuban makes a compelling argument that the mere existence of technology in schools is not going to radically transform education. He shows how added technology is avidly adopted as a transforming force by a small number of teachers but is usually used to reinforce traditional teaching techniques. But I feel Cuban's argument starts to break down at this point. He continually describes a "cabal" of government, political, and private interests that push technology on schools to transform them. He then cites the lack of transformation as a sign that the "cabal" is wrong in their assumption that technology can be a change agent. I think things are far more complicated. The real problem has more to do with issues like technology support, real **classroom** access to technology, sufficient training for teachers and a goal of transformation. All these things are necessary for real change but are not often being pushed by those in power.

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