The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Are computers the "ultimate innovation" that will lead us into a 21st-century educational utopia? Or are they merely distractions, part of a long line of technological advances that are incompatible with proven traditions of learning? Oppenheimer's book, titled after a metaphor for the short attention spans of today's students, locates the waning educational computing craze in the historical context of an ed-tech trajectory that has brought visions of accelerated academic achievement followed by disappointment. Like B.F. Skinner's teaching machines of the 1950s, computer-based learning promises more than it can deliver, says journalist Oppenheimer. He visited elite public schools, under-resourced schools, high-tech schools and even a school for juvenile offenders, and has interviewed many experts. He draws compelling portraits of excellent schools in which computers play a peripheral role, arguing that the tried-and-true methods of progressive education-inquiry, exploration, hands-on learning and focused discussion-do more to develop students' intellectual capacities than technological gadgetry does. His well-researched and intelligible argument also takes aim at such current obsessions as standardized testing. Oppenheimer doesn't advocate removing computers from the classroom, but argues for a hard look at what can and can't be accomplished with the enormous investments they require ($90 billion just during the 1990s). Policy makers and teachers might be better off, he writes, remembering the basics: good teaching, small classes, critical thinking, meaningful work and the human touch.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The other side of the much-ballyhooed promise of technology in improving education is the reality that it often distracts from real education, provides new opportunities for commercial interests, and only contributes to growing inequities and lack of performance. Oppenheimer sorts through the concerns of advocates and critics of technology in the classroom and examines the ways that schools actually use computer technology and the Internet, from absorbing research projects to typing drills to games. Part 1 focuses on the false promises of technology, citing past failures to deliver improved academic performance. Part 2 examines the hidden troubles of high-tech kinks, from system incompatibilities to the shifting of funds for books into computers. In part 3, Oppenheimer examines successful technology programs at schools, businesses, and even the U.S. Army. He concludes with suggestions on how schools can maximize the benefits of technology and integrate computers into effective educational programs. This is a helpful resource for educators and parents weighing issues concerning computers and education. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (October 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400060443
• ISBN-13: 978-1400060443
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #786,299 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking Critically About Technology in Education..., October 27, 2003

By A Customer

I've worked as a district level administrator in the K-12 world of educational technology since 1996. The questions and topics that Todd raises in this book are identical to the frustrations many of are dealing with on a daily basis. It's astonishing how many of today's educators have a blanket assumption that "technology" translates into "student achievement" or "improved student learning". The first 100 pages of Todd's book do a great job of deconstructing the biased research that's used as sales material by the technology companies.

This is the first decent "critical" look at technology in education. A must read for anybody working in the educational technology field.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poverty kids get computers, rich kids get teachers, December 8, 2003

By	Extollager (Mayville, ND United States) - See all my reviews

More elegantly, FORBES editor Stephen Kindel wrote (almost 20 years ago) that "it is the poor who will be chained to the computer; the rich will get teachers."

Oppenheimer visits numerous classrooms -- described alertly and sensitively -- and talks to innumerable teachers, students, company leaders, and others, observing the realities of technology in the classroom. He reports striking findings of good research into learning, since education has, in fact, a "long, abundantly documented history." His book is exceptionally readable and timely. It also prompts concern, e.g. about young lawyers dependent on online indexes who "'don't know how to use the books.'" He especially prompts concern for the experience of millions of students who will pass through priceless years of capacity for learning while being cheated because of administrators, teachers and parents who have fallen for "e-lusions," as Oppenheimer calls them.

At least two audiences should read this book:

(1) Ed school faculty -- As professionals training the new generation of teachers, you owe it to them and to yourself to be conversant with this book. If you are overworked, I sympathize; but you need to know this book, and probably need to assign the book as required reading, or at least require passages from it.

If the following terms are familiar to you, you'll recognize matters the author deals with:

attention span
collaborative learning
criticial thinking
constructivism

courseware
distance learning & university systems
"guide at the side, not sage on the stage"
information economy
instructional technology worker
laptops in all classrooms
mastery learning
multiple intelligences
No Child Left Behindpartnerships with business
portfolios
project-based learning
readability formulas
Renaissance Learning (a company)
service learning
task forces for curriculum development & technology

(2) Parents who are anxious that their kids need the school or the home to invest in state-of-the-art computers.

Here are a few sentences I marked:

"Among the greater ironies of the computer age is that information is cheap and accessible, and so no longer very valuable. What is valuable is what is done with it. And human imagination cannot be mechanized."
"Technology promises an experience by which we don't have to do anything to make it happen."

There is a need for deepened human relations "which are very different interactions than the faux relationships conducted over the Internet."

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Devastating the motivational myth, January 19, 2004

By	David Dee (Kentfield, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Flickering Mind devastates the notion that computers in school somehow provide children with an educational boost. In fact, by draining funds from traditional programs and distracting teachers and students from real learning, computers have been an educational drag. Oppenheimer exposes the underpinning of the arguments of pro-computer political leaders and educators as a blind faith that computers can motivate students to learn in a way that teachers cannot. We should be relieved that the computer's motivational power for education has been revealed to be a myth.

This motivational myth has not only cost billions but it has obscured the real value of computers for education (at least in elementary grades). Computers excel at quantitative work. People excel at qualitative work. Motivating a student to learn is not a quantitative task, instead it is one of the most challenging of qualitative tasks. Computers cannot motivate students except in the novelty stage (as can any new activity). Motivating the individual student must be left to the humans in closest proximity and thus the responsibility largely falls to the teacher.

Leaders looking for the next quick fix for education's woes should not throw the computers out and swing the pendulum back 50 years. Unfortunately there is little in The Flickering Mind which argues against such a backlash. Oppenheimer's conclusions that we should give teachers more responsibility, pay them more and step back from standardized testing as the primary measure of learning effectiveness are easy to agree with. I disagree, however, that the computer is just another teaching tool in the same category as the overhead projector.

While it is not the motivator that many have believed in, the computer has more potential than a fixed-function machine because of its adaptability and interconnectivity. This potential has been overlooked because the idea of the computer as the magic motivator has drawn all the attention. A paradigm-shift in thinking is needed to illuminate the real opportunity that the computer and the Internet hold for primary grade education which I call "paperless teaching."