Contradicting Steve Jobs in Instructional Technology

Steve Jobs reflected on Apple Computers' corporate culture in the February 2004 edition of Macworld to say, "We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on." This quote from a computer vendor made in 2004, when time-wasting websites like MySpace, Fark, Facebook, and YTMND were rapidly gaining users deserves scrutiny. Yet, this philosophy continues to find application in a host of projects meant to address the global digital divide without considering the need for supervision to make it effective for boosting poor students' academic and life chances. It seems that computer use, to no surprise by anyone already on the Internet, can imperil academic achievement as easily as low-quality TV programming.

My first instinct is to compare issuing computers to children to building dams to control the flow of technology without checking the stream for pollution or damage to the ecosystem. It's an easy answer to a problem deeply entangled in issues of economic and sociocultural capital, the role of computing, and not simply technological access. I am a strong advocate of informal learning through the Internet, which children and youth readily accomplish even in activities considered frivolous by most adults. However, I am equally committed to this learning being part of a pedagogical mix that includes a formal pedagogy that weaves these informal experiences into broader issues that a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum addresses.

Yet without access, the issue of instructional technology becomes moot (the "real computer scientists don't use computers" adage notwithstanding). I doubt this type of criticism will hamper efforts to make wider distribution of computing technology a reality. Most experts and laypeople recognize the value in distribution, but studies like this remind us that it should be an expression of involvement by wider school communities, not a replacement for it.