[quoting Sturgess, 5 Mar 97.a] ...it seems that there is an adversarial position between the proponents of technology and teachers in regular classrooms. Perhaps focusing on establishing alternative schools is not the correct tactic to take in this case.
I think my comment was misconstrued. I did not mean to imply that alternative schools are the only form of alternative approach, nor that the alternatives had to exist outside the public school system.
I believe that classroom teachers would invest more in technology if they felt they could incorporate it into an existing system. What is needed is a "transitional technology" that proves its worth to the masses, i.e., the regular classroom teachers. To most it seems too risky to make a large investment of time and money for what they perceive to be little gain.
Yup. This is a classic change management issue. Early adopters will try things and take risks and accept failure--middle adopters won't. I think we're more or less at the point where the early adopters have adopted technology (to the extent their resources allow). Now comes the REAL challenge: getting the middle adopters to do it. That means not only showing that the rewards are positive, as you say. It also means showing that use of technology is "normal" and "not risky" and worth the effort. One of the trickiest parts of this that by definition, a middle adopter looks at an early adopter and thinks the early adopter is crazy; so the proselytizing has to be done by other middle adopters.
...and, of course, the payoff really has to be there.
It seems that a lot of different alternatives would simply diversify the existing market for courseware enough to make it uneconomical for developers to produce any kind of software. No, I think we need "safety in numbers."
The economies of technology-based learning are certainly economies of scale. And there certainly are cases where having too many alternatives has prevented development of large-scale technological solutions (example: there's lots of reading and math software available, because those subject areas are fairly well standardized nation-wide; that's much less true for literature and the social studies, where curricula vary substantially by district and even by classroom). One of the ironies of the current standards movement (warts and all--separate topic for another LISTSERV, please!) is that it could help create a larger market for technology in schools.
In sum, I agree with you that the customer is always right--meaning that you can't sell the schools something that they don't want, even if you think they need it. But it's an open question in my mind as to whether the "traditional school" will adapt and adopt fast enough to keep pace with the growing availability of alternatives, both within and outside the public school system. I just hope the "early adopters" pull it off. There are already lots of cases of "early adopters" who became so frustrated with the "traditional system" that they gave up on changing it, and bailed out (to another career, or to another alternative way of teaching). Often, they are the ones who are "voting with their feet" now.
Who's going to win? What's going to happen? My answer is "everything you can think of." The educational system is far to large and diverse to predict that the next century will be anything close to monolithic (and monopolistic?) in the way it reacts to the increasing availability of technologically-mediated alternatives for education and training.
For those of us on the TBT side, it's definitely going to be an interesting ride--IF we deliver on our promises, and overcome the barriers to performance I described.