A note from the publisher:

If it takes a revolution to revitalize our failing educational system, then Frederick Bennett, Ph.D. has fired the first shot in this controversial book, which has one compelling message: let computers teach (without a human between the student and the machine.) Radical yet realistic in his approach, Dr. Bennett lays out the difficulties that are present in American education and show why millions of computers in schools have been ineffectual. While youngsters didn't devise the educational system that defrauds them of learning, they are trapped in it and by it. Bennett in this insightful and fascinating book provides the key to set them free.

"Children are born with the innate desire to learn, yet over 25 million adults' lives are virtually destroyed by their illiteracy," writes Bennett. He documents in detail why computers have the unique ability to break this pattern of broken lives and unrealized dreams. Computers, if used differently, will enable every student without exception to succeed in school. Individualized instruction is the key. A private tutor in the form of a computer will allow each pupil to learn at his or her own comfortable rate. The benefits will show in the lives of slower students, brighter students, handicapped students, all students.

While some may fear that computerized education will create an unfeeling school system of automatons, Dr. Bennett dismisses this dogma with data. Teachers will remain and provide the human element to ensure that education develops the whole person, not just the intellectual side. The primary mission of teachers will remain unchallenged: they will continue as educators, facilitators, and role models, with more time to do their job. Computers will instruct; teachers educate.Children and teachers will both benefit.

Freed of traditional time-consuming duties, "Leader Teachers" will mentor and monitor children as they progress. Of all the changes that will flow from computerized education, perhaps the most visible will be the new relationships that will develop between teachers and students. No student will pass through school without individual attention; a teacher will know the child, and the child will have a specific teacher as individual guide and helper.Computerization will allow smaller schools because all will have superior learning opportunities. More direction in smaller schools, one might surmise, could help prevent another tragedy like that at Littleton.

Comments about the book by leading authorities:

"I found the book provocative and exciting."
Esther Dyson, author of Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age

"Bennett provides a penetrating insight into the difficulties associated with today's educational system and maps out a viable solution for tomorrow."
Marcie Desrochers, Ph.D. Associate Professor at the College of Charleston, Charleston, SC

"We need to listen to Bennett's message"
Dr. Douglas McDougall, Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

"Reading the book by Dr. Bennett will benefit everybody concerned about education."
Zygmunt Scheidlinger M.Sc.E.E., Tel Aviv, Israel

"In this book Bennett describes a central piece of the solution to the problem of education today."
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Ph.D., President, New England Complex Systems Institute

"An important and thought-provoking book."
Greg Ostfeld, Founder of Forensics Online

"Even though Dr. Bennett's analysis concentrates on policy and practices in the United States, we feel that his overall discussion of computers and education is of global importance."
Editors, First Monday, Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet

Hardcover, 240 pages

Price US$ 25.00

ISBN 0-9669583-6-5



e-mail

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This book has one message: schools can use technology more effectively, and for the welfare of students, teachers, and society, they must do so.

Businesses and other organizations throughout the world have made gigantic strides as a result of better applications of technology. Schools, despite their acquisition of millions of computers, waddle along as they have for eons. They waste the power of these machines and reap negligible educational benefits as shown by the lack of improvement in overall test scores. Meanwhile, fervent pleas from parents for improved schools result in verbal agreement from educators and politicians, but no effective action follows. This dialogue has continued for years. The difficulties in education remain virtually untouched. Hope of major improvements under present conditions is little more than a fantasy.

Today's technology, if used differently, could bring advances that would improve education dramatically. Ordinary students would make massive gains and restraints on bright students would dissolve. Wherever illiteracy is a problem, it would be eliminated, and handicapped students would have immense new vistas opened to them.

If computers are to be effective in schools, however, overthrowing present practices must occur, and that frightens many people. Opposition is therefore inevitable. Some human instructors will object emotionally, fearing that more extensive employment of technology will seriously degrade their position. Their trepidation is understandable but groundless. Although teachers will have to alter their accustomed practices, they will reach a new level of importance, will accomplish more, and will have greater job satisfaction when schools take advantage of the power of computers. Some parents may also object to technology fearing that an Orwellian world will engulf their children. This fear is also false.

Computerized education, properly used, can provide a personal side to education that is impossible today. Despite the present retarded pace of change in schools, a real revolution can happen. Compelling evidence of the power of effective computerized education is available in a few places. When parents become aware of this evidence, and when they become cognizant of what computers can do under still better conditions, they, together with other concerned citizens, can force schools to use computers properly. Schooling will become both enjoyable for children and supremely effective. Thereafter, the dire weakness of much of today's education will vanish.

This book explains why computers have failed to alter education until now, how they should be employed, and the startling advances their appropriate use will bring. I am a psychologist and rely on principles of that science to support the arguments favoring improved use of these machines. I am also a professional computer programmer and apply knowledge acquired in that role to show the gains that technology can bring to education - gains that may seem like fantasies to anyone who hasn't studied the power and capability of this technology. Although I am an American and stress the difficulties in schools in the United States, computers can remake and improve education throughout the world.

Effective computerization in education will happen eventually, simply because the advantages are monumental. Unfortunately, the longer the change is delayed, the more present students are deprived of the benefits that could accrue to them. The necessary prerequisite for this change to occur is thorough discussion by educators, parents, politicians, and concerned individuals of what can and should be done. This book attempts to hasten this process.

Computers can remake education. It is time to begin.

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TO SEE THE REST OF THE BOOK, GO TO :COMPUTERS AS TUTORS