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We are all interested in improving our informal and formal education systems. This is an everyday challenge to parents, teachers, politicians, and many other people.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is certainly relevant to addressing the challenge. Most people who look at possible roles of ICT in education ask just two questions:

1.  How can computers be used to help teachers teach better? Here, the focus is on instructional delivery and assessment.

2.  How can computers help students to learn better? Here the focus is on helping students to learn better and faster, and to longer retain the knowledge gained. Highly interactive intelligent computer-assisted learning provides an excellent example of progress occurring in this area.

These are good questions, and progress is occurring in these two approaches to using ICT to improve education.

However, they miss a very important third question: What should students be learning? A variation of this question is: If ICT can help in solving a type of problem or accomplishing a type of task that students study in school, what should students be learning about solving that problem or accomplishing that task?

We have made progress on some aspects of this question. Students are learning how to make use of the Web to retrieve information that is relevant to the problem or task they are encountering. In some sense, students learn to use the Web like an overgrown encyclopedia. (You know, of course, that the Wikipedia is a very popular source of information.)

Students have learned to use a word processor with spell checker, and to insert pictures into a text document. Students have learned to communicate via email and text messaging. Students have learned to download, store, and play music.

However, the impacts of all of these things on the content of eduction are minimal. :Here are some "ask yourself" questions:  Ask yourself: Are students receiving high quality explicit instruction about and practice in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD)? (See http://iae-pedia.org/Knowledge_Discovery_and_Data-mining.)

Next, consider the range of tasks in which computer technology is now a routine tool. As examples, think about the range of math-related problems that computers can solve, and think about the overall discipline of computer graphics, including and digital photography, computer animation. Ask yourself if students learning to make use of WolframAlpha and of computer algebra systems (http://iae-pedia.org/Free_Math_Software)? Ask yourself if students are being assessed in a hands-on Internet-connected computer system that has the types of software designed to significantly help in solving challenging problems and accomplishing challenging s tasks? Think about computer modeling and simulation, and the overall idea of computational thinking. Think about collaborative problem solving done by people and machine throughout the world working together.

With the above “ask yourself and think about” suggestions, you should begin to get the picture of potential major changes in the content being taught in schools.

Final Remarks

Spend a bit of time reflecting on what you have just read. How does the information fit in with your current knowledge, beliefs, and activities? How can you make use of the information to help improve our informal and formal educational systems? Who do you know that might benefit from reading the IAE Blog entry?

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Links to Related IAE Documents

 Computational Thinking.

Computational Thinking versus Computer and Information Science.

Computer Literacy in 1972.

Computer technology: Solutions looking for a problem and problems looking for a solution.

Distance Learning.

 Education for now and the future.  IAE Newsletter - Issue 21, July 2009.

ICT integrated into the discipline content areas..

Information Underload and Overload.

Information Age.

Integrating project-based learning with Information and Communication Technology.

Key ideas from the 2008 book: Christensen, Horn, and Johnson "Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns." The book explores how Distance Education is changing our schools. IAE Newsletter - Issue 26, September 2009. 

Knowledge Discovery and Data-mining.

Learning on your own. "They know enough who know how to learn."  IAE Newsletter - Issue 16, April 2009.

Modeling and simulation in science.

No Cost Educational Videos.

Open Source Textbooks.

Past, present, and future uses of computers in education.  IAE Newsletter - Issue 3, October 2008. 

Problem Solving.

Talented and Gifted Education.

Tools That Empower Students .

Tutor, Tool, Tutee, Toy.  IAE Newsletter - Issue # 42 May 2010.