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The Growing Impact of Information Technology on Children
| Article
# : |
14767 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1988 |
4,702 Words |
| Author
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Roy D. Pea
Roy Pea, currently at the Institute for Research on Learning,
is a developmental cognitive scientist who specializes in
children's learning and reasoning with information
technologies. Before working at IRL as a senior research
scientist, he was professor of educational communication and
technology at New York University and for five years carried
out research on children's learning with computers at Bank
Street College's Center for Children and Technology. He
recently coauthored a major report for the Office of
Technology Assessment on "State of the Art in Educational
Technology Research and Development." His current work focuses
on science learning with multimedia technologies and the
advent of hypermedia literacy in education. |
The lives of children are increasingly affected by the presence of microcomputers and other information technologies throughout their environment. For those who have not been closely following the developments in information technologies, there may be some surprises. Microprocessors have become increasingly incorporated in everyday devices, due in part to the dramatic drop in cost for computer power and speed and their flexibility as control devices. From toasters, microwave ovens, and bank tellers to videocassette recorders, TVs, and message machines, microprocessor control circuitry has come to play a ubiquitous role in everyday appliances. In an important merger of communications and computation, the touch-tone telephone has become a keyboard for many remote interactions with computers. Even today's toys have taken on an eerie interactivity. For example, one doll is equipped with temperature and light sensors, and a "speech synthesis" chip that makes context-sensitive remarks, such as requesting a sweater when the temperature drops, or sunglasses when brought outdoors from a dark room. Some automobiles today have more computer power than desktop computers. And as the French semiotician Roland Barthes was fond of observing, we must always question the invisible, to understand what it is and to make it part of our explicit consciousness, or it may control us.
I will explore some of the issues and findings that have begun to emerge from theoretical and empirical examinations of the implications of such new "ecosystems" for thought and action among American youth.
Unfortunately, there is virtually no research on children's experience with computer controlled devices in the home or outside school settings. For it is in the schools that computers have become most visible--as devices designated specifically to aid in the educational process. While today's classroom computer resembles a hybrid of the television and typewriter, its interactive and symbol manipulation capabilities distinguish it in important ways from these earlier devices.
How are computers affecting children in education? There is a great deal of speculation about the dramatic positive or negative consequences of the use of information technologies, particularly the microcomputer, in schools. Some futurists like to paint visions of individualized instruction, utilizing one computer per child, which would adapt to the student's level of learning, and be more able than human teachers to respond to a student's knowledge and needs. According to this model, technology should be used primarily in schools to automate the instruction and testing processes long
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