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Marking the Second Frontier

Educators have long been responsive to short-lived fads. For a few years this or that seems to hold the key to solving whatever is problematic in education. Thus programmed instruction, competency-based training, back-to-basics, and numerous other causes have caught the imaginations of educators for several years, only to recede into obscurity. Interest in computers and education had such faddish qualities a few years ago, as the microcomputer caught the imagination of many parents, educators, and children. Computing was hailed as the new frontier in education. About 1984, that faddish interest distinctly weakened as people realized that computers in education were no quick fix to educational needs. One then began to hear the question put with increasing frequency: Would computers in education be another in the series of technological disappointments suffered by educators? Film, radio, television, have all been heralded as revolutionary reforming forces in the realm of education. Despite the ballyhoo, however, they have amounted to developments far less influential than their heralds had predicted. Radio in education is almost a nonexistent influence, and, somewhat more happily, at least, film and television have become useful supplements to established practices, but not anything transformative. Currently computers seem destined to a similar status, patient drill-masters that occasionally supplement didactic explanations with a memorable simulation. Before acquiescing to this appearance, however, let us reflect on the multiplicity of time scales that are relevant to the flow of human experience. The first interest in computers in education arose with the early excitement over the microcomputer, which took hold as a novelty. That new-frontier status was perforce short-lived, lasting about five years-from 1979 to 1984. The novelty of a technology differs fundamentally from its productive duration, however, and we need to find the time scale appropriate for measuring the probable duration of computers as a developing educational influence. This will not be short.