The pencil sharpening metaphor.


Teachers in my courses would frequently remark that from their experience the computer wasn't a functional tool for the classroom because their students were always encountering technical problems which kept them from getting any actual work accomplished. "How do you expect me to use the computer in the classroom if the pupils have to restart the computer all the time?" they would ask. The problem with this question was that it assumed that before the computer pupils didn't have other, just as effective, methods of seeing to it that they didn't get anything accomplished. I've seen pupils spend an entire class period sharpening their pencils, successfully breaking the tip just when it seems to be sharp enough for writing, and then starting the sharpening process over again from scratch. True, a box of pencils that can be wasted on unnecessary sharpening is considerably cheaper than a computer that has to be jammed and restarted again and again, but they both work fine when the objective is to avoid doing any work in class. If teachers don't want to use computers in their classrooms, they'll have to find a more convincing reason than the time wasted on getting them to work.



Go to: It doesn't seem to be doing anything, or
Go to: You mean you teach this stuff?