There are advantages and disadvantages to be seen in the use of computers in the classroom. I think it is wonderful that grade four students would have the capability to create their own web pages. But I would not want that activity to get in the way of learning more fundamental skills that schools are supposed to provide. Computers should be a means of providing education, not ends in themselves. Using the Internet makes vast storehouses of knowledge available in a way that is truly revolutionary. Learning how to utilize this vast storehouse of information will be an important skill to master. It is a matter of learning how to use it or being overwhelmed by it. Those are the options. Along with this skill requirement will be the requirement to learn how to discriminate between high quality and low quality information sources. This has always been a requisite skill in education but it will take on added importance in what Neil Postman labels an "information glut."

Utilizing computers and technology in the classroom represents a challenge for teachers, many of whom do not have the requisite skills, but this will change as the current generation of teachers retires and is replaced by younger, more computer savvy students, although being younger is no guarantee that teachers will be computer savvy. Learning how to use computers, however, should not be the main focus of using computers in the classroom; learning how to use computers to learn should be. Computers should be used to enhance traditional learning, not replace it. The use of computers in the classroom will present new challenges in assessment. Traditional means of assessment will have to change. One thing that computers cannot replace is human interaction, which is a vital component of education that must not be eliminated. There is more to learning than acquiring information and developing problem solving skills. Learning how to interact with other people is a vital component of education. Roger Schank believes that computers can free teachers up for the more interactive types of education by taking over the more mundane and repetitive tasks of education.

However, we must not allow computers to dominate us, a concern that Postman raises. Computers and information must not be divorced from human purpose. Postman is concerned about the lack of control over information in our computer age. I see this as a double-edged sword. In a democratic society it enables democracy to become more vital, but it also has the capacity to undermine authority structures in society. However, authority structures are already undermined in our present society in my estimation. Computers may have contributed to this but they are not the only source of it. Computers have shaped our understanding of the world, as Joseph Weizenbaum asserts. They are our tools, but we have created our tools out of our understanding of the world. He also asserts that computers have shaped our options in a way that has closed doors to other options that were previously open. I share Weizenbaum’s concern that our tools have alienated us from nature, but computers have only accelerated this process of alienation, they did not invent it. We need to make a concerted effort to stay in touch with nature. We do have a sense of dependence upon computers and technology nowadays as well, and in some senses we are dependent upon technology. Witness the recent ice storms in Quebec. We don’t know how to cope when our technology is taken away from us. We lack the physical means to survive without it.

Robert D. Romanyshyn believes that we must learn to think in non-rational ways about technology when considering the problems that it poses. We have been conditioned to think in linear patterns because our technology demands it, but Romanyshyn opines that we must learn how to think in the way that we dream, which is a non-linear type of thinking. This latter type of thinking stifles the imagination in Romanyshyn’s view. I think that Romanyshyn has a valid point but I would not want to abandon linear thinking. I believe linear thinking has great value, but it should be supplemented by the type of thinking we have in dreams or any other type of thinking. Perhaps the type of thinking we need is exemplified by the use of hypertext, which enables us to move about from one information source to another in a non-linear fashion, although I find myself wanting to finish one hypertext article before I proceed to another. Otherwise I lack a sense of coherence. Information becomes disjointed if I do too much linking from one source to another. I lose my place in the grand scheme of things.

I share Postman’s concern with the social sciences. They exemplify what is wrong with our present society. We view the world in mechanistic terms because of the quantification of information by the social sciences. This has created a division within my own field of History. Some historians have quantified history in their attempts to recreate the past. Statistics are supposed to enlighten us about past ages. I see this as rather deterministic and frightening. Humanity has been reduced to numbers. History for me is much more about people and their ideas. How we think and what we think shapes how we live. Computers are a prime example of this. The linear logic inherent in computers demonstrates our primary mode of thinking. Statistics are an outgrowth of this thinking. We have a feeble understanding of the past, present and the future if we reduce all information to quantifiable information. We become impoverished by thinking which focuses on the quantifiable. This is an aspect of human existence but not the only aspect. The current emphasis on math and science in our public education systems will have negative consequences for the future. We need math and science but we also need language and literature, History and Social Studies. These are about what it means to be human. If we neglect these then all the technology in the world cannot help us. These provide us with the skills of human life that enable us to coexist in meaningful relationships. Language and literature enable us to communicate and appreciate beauty. History and Social Studies enable us to solve the problems of human relationships. We examine the past to learn how to live in the present and the future. Technology can help us in this regard but it can also be used to usurp the proper role of these disciplines in the schools. Computer technology has enabled us to bridge the globe with telecommunications, email and the Internet. These can be used to enhance History and Social Studies by putting us in touch with the far corners of the earth. It is all well and fine to learn math and science and how to use computers but they should be put in the service of human interaction, which is the focus of History, Social Studies, literature and language.

John J. Chiodo and Mary L. Flaim have made a good case for the use of computers as aids in the discipline of Social Studies. Debriefing is an essential component in the use of computer simulations that are concerned with solving problems that can be related to real life problems. These simulations require the use of problem-solving and decision-making skills. Computers facilitate the development of such skills. The capacity to develop those skills existed prior to the advent of computers but computers are a useful tool in this regard. As George M. Farnworth tells us, computers assist us in processing information and in connecting us with the world. Seth H. Ruef and Thomas N. Layne alert teachers to the need to ask what the computer does that we could not already do without the computer. This points to the role that computers must have as a tool, not as an end in themselves.

In conclusion, although I share some of the concerns about the use of computers in the classroom, such as what Postman describes, I do believe they have a place in the classroom. It’s just that the role that they have must be carefully defined and controlled. They should be a tool, a means to an end, rather than an end in themselves. Otherwise their use is problematical.