信息技术以及美国学校的未来

这篇文章挺长的，先翻译出前言部分：
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THE FUTURE
OF SCHOOLING IN THE UNITED STATES
信息技术以及美国学校的未来

Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning
Vol. 1, No. 2 (2006) 145–155
发表于 2006年的 技术提高学习

RICHARD HALVERSON
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
1025 W. Johnson, Madison, WI 53705
halverson@education.wisc.edu
ALLAN COLLINS
Northwestern University
School of Education and Social Policy
2120 Campus Dr., Evanston, IL 60208
collins@bbn.com
威斯康辛州大学，教育领导与政策分析系，理查德
西北大学，教育与社会政策系，艾伦科林斯
We argue that the inability of schools to embrace new core technologies lies in the nature
of schools as social institutions. Thus the catalytic power of information technologies is
likely to leave the core practices of schooling untouched, and instead open up a wide range
of alternative learning venues to traditional schools. We see the seeds of a technologydriven,
alternative system emerging in the recent movements toward home schooling,
virtual schools, distance education, learning centers, workplace learning, and informal
learning opportunities. As these venues continue to develop, we believe they will begin
to converge as a viable alternative to the existing school systems.
对于像学校这样的社会机构来说，我们认为学校在本质上就不能够与新的核心技术相融合。然而，信息技术以其强大的催化力量影响到了教育实践，为传统学校的学习场地提高到更为广阔的领域。由于技术的推动，把以往系统化的学校教学更趋向于融进每个家庭、虚拟学校、远程教学、学习中心、学习社区以及信息化的学习等形式中。随着学习环境的继续发展，我们相信他们取代现行的学校系统更加可行。

Keywords: Education reform; educational technology.
关键词：教育改革；教育技术

We have all heard stories about how technology is changing learning:
A computer firm in India puts a window into the World Wide Web
on a wall in a New Delhi slum. The slum kids start exploring the
Web without any previous computer experience or English literacy.
They teach each other how to explore the Web. Their favorite site
is the Disney Corporation site where they can watch Mickey Mouse
and Donald Duck.1
我们已经深刻了解到技术如何改变着我们的学习：
    印度的一家电脑公司为新德里贫民窟打开了一扇通往“万维网”之窗，贫民窟的孩子们即使没有一点电脑及英文知识，他们仍然在网络中摸索着，彼此告诉对方如何上网。他们最喜爱的站点是迪斯尼公司网站，在那里他们可以观看米老鼠和唐老鸭。

The parents of a young mathematical whiz decide that he is not
getting anything out of school. So they decide to teach him at home
while letting him take gym classes in school. A retired engineer isenlisted to introduce him to the wonders of educational software.
He introduces the kid to many different software programs, such as
Geometer’s Sketchpad and Mathematica, where the kid can push
his mathematical knowledge to the limits. When he grows up, he
participates in the international mathematics Olympiad.
一个数学小奇才的父母认为孩子在学校中学不到什么东西，所以决定只让孩子在学校上体育课，剩下的回到家自己来教，一个退休的工程师也应邀来引导孩子学习教学软件的知识，他引导孩子学习不同的软件程序，比如几何画图及数学，孩子可以把它的数学知识学到极致。当他长大后，参加国际数学奥林匹克竞赛。

Seymour Papert, a technology visionary, tells the story of how
when his grandson was three years old, he had a passion for
dinosaurs. So his parents bought him lots and lots of videos about
dinosaurs. He watched them over and over. As Seymour put it,
“Before he could read, he learned much, much more about dinosaurs
than I will ever know!”
西莫，技术咨询师，讲述他的3岁的孙子，对恐龙如何如何着迷，所以他的父母给他买了好多段关于恐龙的视频，他一遍一遍的看，按西莫的话说，在孩子不会阅读之前，他就知道很多甚至我都不知道的有关恐龙的事情。

A 40 year-old inherits a windfall when her parents die and she
wants to know how to invest the money. So she searches the Web
and finds a tutorial on investing on the Motley Fool Website. She
teaches herself about stocks and bonds and real estate investing, so
that she can invest her money wisely.
一个40的人得到父母死后留下的大量遗产，她很想知道如何投资这笔钱，因此查询了网络，并在一个网站上查到了她需要投资信息，她学习着把钱投资到房地产、股票、债券，使自己的投资更加明智。

Korean teens flock to Internet cafes in order to play on-line
games such as Lineage. They fuel a lucrative virtual economy, practice
virtual trades, and engage in clan-based warfare. The South
Korean government grows concerned when Lineage clan conflicts
spill over into real-life street fighting.
韩国青少年很多去网吧上网，为了玩在线游戏如宗族游戏。他们带动了利润丰厚的虚拟经济，在游戏中进行虚拟的交易，并加入以部族为基础的战争。韩国政府日益关注这种游戏，以免虚拟的宗族部族冲突演化为真实生活的巷战。

The common thread running through all of these stories is how new technologies create
learning opportunities that challenge traditional schools and colleges. These new
learning niches enable people of all ages to pursue learning on their own terms. People
around the world are taking their education out of school into homes, libraries,
Internet cafes, and workplaces, where they can decide what they want to learn,
when they want to learn, and how they want to learn.
贯穿这些故事的共同主线就是如何利用新技术创造新的学习机遇，来挑战传统的学校和学院。这些新的学习方式使各种年龄阶段的人们都能按照自己的方式来学习，世界各地都把教育带出学校，走向家庭、图书馆、网吧、工作场所，在那里他们可以决定自己想要学习什么，什么时候学习以及想要如何进行学习。

Information technologies are reshaping and extending our capacity to communicate.
Learning to read and write, calculate and think, key aspects of our communicative
capacity, are at the heart of schooling. Yet our schools, relying on proven
technologies such as books, blackboards, worksheets, and paper and pencil tests,
have been curiously resistant to the influence of information technologies. Unlike
modern workers, students in schools do not do much of their work in computer
environments. Computers mostly are found in labs for special courses and remain
peripheral to core instructional practices. As information technologies accelerate
change in modern workplaces, the gap between the technologies of work and school
grows wider. Trying to prepare students for the 21st century with 19th century
technology is like training people to fly rockets by riding bicycles.
信息技术重塑并扩展了我们交流的能力，学校教学的核心既是学习读与写、计算与思考以及很重要的交流能力。然而，我们的学校，依靠已经被证实的技术，如书本、黑板、作业、论文及测试，一直拒绝信息技术的影响，学生不像现代的工人，他们没有很多时间利用电脑环境进行学习。电脑大多只是出现在实验室，用于特殊的课程，保留着外设脱离内容的教学方法，随着信息技术加快改变现代的工作环境，在工作和学校中的技术代沟变得更大。为着21世纪做着准备的学生却用着19世纪的技术，就相当于是利用骑自行车来训练人们用火箭飞翔。

We argue that the inability of schools across the world to embrace new core
technologies does not stem from the reluctance of students, teachers, and leaders to
invest in technologies, but lies instead in the nature of schools as social institutions.
We use the evolution of public schooling in the United States as a case study for
considering how new technologies are likely to shape the practices of teaching and
learning in schools. We contend that, as the structures and cultures of institutions
evolve, their core practices become increasingly resistant to change. Thus the catalytic
power of information technologies are likely to leave the core practices of our
highly evolved institutions of schooling untouched, and will instead converge into
components of a parallel, alternative learning system.
我们认为全球范围内的学校不可能紧跟新的核心技术，并不是来自领导者、老师、学生对技术引进的不情愿，而在于学校作为社会机构的本质。我们利用美国公立学校的改革作为例子来研究新技术如何可能塑造学校教与学的实践。我们认为，当学校组织的结构和文化的改变时，他们的核心实践会越来越抵制改变。因此信息技术的催生力量很可能会使原来不被影响到的教学实践有着高度的改变，利用一种新的学习系统来替代。