From the issue dated April 28, 2000

POINT OF VIEW If John Dewey Were Alive Today, He'd Be a Webhead By PESHE KURILOFF When my husband brought home our first Macintosh computer, in 1986, and told our children -- who were then 12, 8, and 5 -- not to touch it until he had read the directions, they naturally ignored him. Long before he found time to go through the instructions, they had the machine out of the box, up and running, with software installed, and were pleading for games and other enhancements. They never worried, as he did, about breaking the computer or making sure it was operating correctly. They wanted results, and they learned from experience. They tried various strategies to make the machine work. When they made mistakes, they corrected them. In a short time, they knew how to make the computer do what they wanted. Their learning process was straight out of John Dewey. Not so much as a premonition of a technology-enhanced universe appears in the writings of Dewey, the educational theorist who has inspired generations of education reformers since he began presenting his thinking at the end of the 19th century. Yet Dewey's dedication to experience as the foundation of education has startling relevance to the debate raging over the value of online teaching and learning. Although the absence of face-to-face interaction unquestionably changes the character of education, the experience of computer-based learning has advantages that we are only beginning to appreciate. In Experience and Education, published in 1938, Dewey offered this summary of the state of education: "Conservatives as well as radicals in education are profoundly discontented with the present educational situation taken as a whole. There is at least this much agreement among intelligent persons of both schools of educational thought. The educational system must move one way or another, either backward to the intellectual and moral standards of a pre-scientific age or forward to ever greater utilization of scientific method in the development of the possibilities of growing, expanding experience." Although I would hesitate to argue that nothing has changed in the past 62 years, or that the scientific method has not been employed pervasively as the route to learning, Dewey's point still seems well taken. The value of experience as a learning tool has yet to receive wide acceptance outside the natural sciences. Dewey's thinking continues to suggest new ways to conceptualize education. In particular, his insistence on "trying" or "undergoing" as the source of knowledge can help to guide us toward more-scientific thinking about, and evaluation of, the uses of instructional technology. Computer manufacturers and software developers are already following Dewey's lead. They don't even bother to provide detailed instructions for their products: We are supposed to learn by doing. If we get stuck and can't figure something out on our own, we can call for help. But the self-starters who persist and learn on their own quickly become tomorrow's technological elite. If we look at the skills required to use computers effectively, not even the most vehement opponent of technology should object to their value as learning tools. Gaining control over the technology fosters a sense of mastery that empowers learners in concrete ways. Acquisition of a skill, such as installing programs, or thorough knowledge of a single program opens the door to numerous possibilities for new learning and experience. The lure of mastery seduces students to experiment, take risks, fail, and try again. Few of the courses that I have taught capture the sense of adventure my students experience in their quest for new knowledge about and control over technology. The introduction of new instructional technologies is creating a precious opportunity to develop new pedagogies and enhance learning in ways that will better meet the needs of our society in the 21st century. The failures of our educational system at all levels have been widely publicized. Even college students often lack literacy and quantitative skills. To date, solutions have focused on raising standards and giving students more -- more reading, more testing -- but not on changing our methods of instruction and our expectations for learning. As Linda Darling-Hammond, of Stanford University, and many other educators have pointed out, however, our current educational system was designed for a different era. We no longer need managers to oversee the Industrial Revolution; instead, we need adventurers prepared to explore cyberspace, the newest frontier. It is not by accident that the new technological experts have become so successful and amassed so much power in such a short time. Like the explorers who navigated the earth to discover new continents, these adventurers have defined spaces we didn't know existed, and have registered their claims to that territory. Yet, the basic curiosity that prompts even young children to pick up a computer mouse and explore cyberspace is in short supply in conventional college classrooms. In recent years, I have often heard my colleagues complain about passive students, devoid of intellectual curiosity. Computer enthusiasts, however, show a great deal of initiative and routinely take learning into their own hands. Instead of requiring students to memorize facts or give the prescribed answers to the questions we pose, we should encourage them to search the Internet for new information and ideas. The skills involved in that process are the same skills that will help them find solutions for today's social, economic, and political problems. Technology is advancing at a relentless pace. As educators, we must exploit our students' experiences with computers to nurture the skills that will enable them to control, rather than react to, the changes that new technology will bring. The rapid pace of change demands flexible thinkers, who view learning and relearning, changing direction, and trying new approaches as part of everyday life. A great deal of what students learn in college becomes obsolete before they graduate. We have changed our ideas about what constitutes the core of a good education. Learning how to learn has become the most fundamental skill that an educated person needs to master, and the instrument that enables learning in almost every field is the computer. Learning how to learn does not occur simply as a result of knowing how to use a computer to access information. Open-ended searches help us teach students how to learn. Such searches are a common feature of Internet navigation, because the Net's structure is nonlinear, and its contents change all the time. The logical thinking that helped previous generations solve problems doesn't work well in the electronic environment. Logic is just one, limited tool for finding answers; intuition plays a critical role, too. Furthermore, learning by reading may well eventually take a back seat to learning from multimedia sources. Successful learners from now on will rely on a more varied repertoire of strategies for absorbing and applying new information -- skills we sorely need. The difficulty of the problems we face in our society demands patience, persistence, and a willingness to make mistakes and try again, traits that are also essential for anyone attempting to develop computer literacy. Open-minded, independent thinkers are more likely to try the multiple strategies needed to make a software program work, or to solve a social problem. They are also better equipped to deal with the absence of authority in cyberspace, and to communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders in the real world. As Dewey emphasized, however, not all experience has equal educational value. Although undirected exploration of the Internet, for example, is informative, it does not constitute a good education. Students left to learn on their own may accept as truth the kind of unexamined thinking that proliferates on the Internet. We need to guide them, to teach them to think critically and analyze information. With our help, students can learn to gather appropriate information and to reach thoughtful conclusions. Computers have revolutionized learning in ways that we have barely begun to appreciate. We have experienced enough, however, to recognize the need to change our thinking about the purposes, methods, and outcome of higher education. Rather than resisting or postponing change, we need to anticipate and learn from it. We must harness the technology and use it to educate our students more effectively than we have been doing. Otherwise, we will surrender our authority to those who can. Peshe Kuriloff is director of the Mellon Writing Project and an adjunct associate professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. http://chronicle.com Section: Opinion & Arts Page: A72 Easy-to-print version E-mail this article