My job talk was based on the notion of using various technology tools as a Trojan Horse. For example, Webliographer, arguably the first social bookmarking program, was a way to use web bookmarks, a then-familiar concept, and "sneak in" a way for people to collaborate and share. Or the online testing system I developed could be snuck in as a way to deliver multiple-choice tests, but could become a means for providing formative assessments that give students opportunities to learn.

Tech folks frequently buy in to this Trojan Horse metaphor. Often, we (they?) think that by sneaking computers into classrooms under various auspices (e.g., it's the 21st century, the Internet is Really Important) with the real hope that what will happen is that teachers will embrace notions of constructivism, will become more student-centered and will change our educational system. There's an AERA SIG called Technology as an agent of change in teaching and learning. I'm even a member. I'm all for these changes and, indeed, became a teacher because I hated school and thought that it really needed to change. I think I hoped and thought that computers could be a part of it (but I may have just thought that it would be a good idea for someone who knew about computers to be teaching about them).

It strikes me today that though I'm all for these changes, I don't think that the promise of those changes is the point. I continue to be struck that we in education seem to feel obligated to come up with some Really Good Reason to use computers in schools. So much so that, for example, teachers in schools where every kid has a laptop, lament that they're "only" word processing and using the web. They think that they need to have kids creating movies or doing something that's "not possible" without computers. Otherwise, they're somehow "wasting" the computers.

I find this absurd.

Virtually everywhere else, whether it's an ad agency, a police station, a fast food restaurant, or an unemployed writer's basement apartment, people use computers. And what do they do with the most of the time? They use word processors, the web, and communicate with people via email, blogs, and even Facebook. You don't hear lawyers say, "You know, we're using these computers only to research cases and write briefs. It's such a waste. If we're going to spend all this money on computers, we should be creating videos and interactive web sites." But so it is in education.

My message is pretty much, "Hey, here's a way to get the 2:1 to 4:1 student computer ratio into classrooms. It costs almost no money. Teachers and students know how to use them. Teachers didn't really know what to do with computers 10 years ago, but they do now---the whole "internet" thing has sorta caught on. Rather than waiting a couple more years for netbooks to get cheap enough, we can do this now. Here's how it's worked in several schools in which I didn't have time to (1) do an intervention, (2) provide technical support, (3) train teachers to use them."

This message is not very compelling for several reasons. I hear things like:

1. That sounds too good to be true, so it must be.
2. I used Unix in the 90s. It sucked.
3. I use Mac/Windows. There's no way I'd going to change to something I haven't heard of.
4. Just putting computers in schools won't change things.

Perhaps I can figure out an argument that these things don't apply to.