In this section are books that describe both the possibilities and dangers of using information communication technologies to help young people take control of their own life-long learning.

John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information (2000).

Education Week on the Web (November 4, 1998).

In the largest study of its kind ever in the US, it was noted that “where technology is used wisely and where the teachers are given the right kind of support and training, and the right kind of equipment, then students are able to actually implement some of the best theory and practice regarding the teaching of writing…students are more willing to do more editing, to spend more time reviewing their text and improving it.”

The President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. Report to the President on the Use of technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the US (1997).

This document offers a discussion on the use of information communication technology as a tool for learning. The document emphasizes the point that a change in pedagogy is key to the use of technology in the development of higher-order reasoning and problem-solving skills.

Jane Healy, Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds – for Better and Worse (1998).

In this comprehensive, practical, and unsettling look at computers in children’s lives, Healy, examines the advantages and drawbacks of computer use for kids at home and in school, exploring its effects on children’s health, creativity, brain development, and social and emotional growth.

From the book jacket:

In this comprehensive, practical, and unsettling look at computers in children’s lives, Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., questions whether computers are really helping or harming children’s development. Once a bedazzled enthusiast of educational computing but now a troubled skeptic, Dr. Healy examines the advantages and drawbacks of computer use for kids at home and school, exploring its effects on children’s health, creativity, brain development, and social and emotional growth.

Today, the Federal Government allocates scarce educational funding to wire every classroom to the Internet, software companies churn out “educational” computer programs even for preschoolers, and school administrators cut funding, and space for books, the arts, and physical education to make room for new computer hardware. It is past the time to address these issues. Many parents and even some educators have been sold on the idea that computer literacy is as important as reading and math. Those who haven’t hopped on the techno bandwagon are left wondering whether they are shortchanging their children’s education or their student’s futures. Few people stop to consider that computers, used incorrectly, may do far more harm than good.

New technologies can be valuable educational tools when used in age-appropriate ways by properly trained teachers. But too often schools budget insufficiently for teacher training and technical support. Likewise, studies suggest that few parents know how to properly assist children’s computer learning: much computer time at home may be wasted time, drawing children away from other developmentally important activities such as reading, hobbies, or creative play. Moreover, Dr. Healy finds that much so-called learning software is more “edutainment” than educational, teaching students more about impulsively pointing and clicking for some trivial goal than about how to think, to communicate, to imagine, or to solve problems. Some software, used without careful supervision, may also have the potential to interrupt a child’s internal motivation to learn.

Failure to Connect is the first book to link children’s technology use to important new findings about stages of child development and brain maturation, which are clearly explained throughout. It illustrates, through dozens of concrete examples and guidelines, how computers can be used successfully with children or different age groups as supplements to classroom curricula, as research tools, or in family projects. Dr. Healy issues strong warnings, however, against too early computer use, recommending little or no exposure before the age of seven, when the brain is primed to take on more abstract challenges. She also lists resources for reliable reviews of child-oriented software, suggests questions parents should ask when their children are using computers in school, and discusses when and how to manage computer use at home. Finally, she offers a thoughtful look at the question of which skills today’s children will really need for success in a technological future – and how they may best acquire them.

Based on years of research into learning and hundreds of hours of interviews and observations with school administrators, teachers, parents, and students, Failure to Connect is a timely and eye-opening examination of the central questions we must confront as technology increasingly influences the way we educate our children.

(Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (SimonSays.com.)

Michael Dertouzos, What Will Be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives (1997)

Education Testing Service, “Does it Compute?” (1998).

David Jonassen, Kyle Peck and Brent Wilson. Learning with Technology (1999).

Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen (1996).

Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992).

Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster, Blown to Bits: How the new economics of information transform strategies(2000).

Paul Gilster, Digital Literacy (1997).

National Research Council, Virtual Reality: Scientific and Technological Challenges (1995).

Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital (1995).

Don Tapscott, Growing up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation (1998).

Don Tapscott, The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence (1995).

From the Preface:

“Today we are witnessing the early, turbulent days of a revolution as significant as any other in human history. A new medium of human communication is emerging, and that may prove to surpass all previous revolutions – the printing press, the telephone, the television – in its impact on our economic and social life. The computer is expanding from a tool for information management to a tool for communications. Interactive multimedia and the so-called information highway, and its exemplar the Internet, are enabling a new economy based on the networking of human intelligence.”

From the publisher:

Separated by continents, Boeing aircraft engineers and prospective clients electronically collaborate on the paperless design of the 777…using automated training systems and network-based teams, Federal Express transforms itself from a courier company into a logistics and networking provider for its customers…browsing through Levi’s interactive home page on the Internet, home shoppers order custom-designed clothing delivered within days to their doorstep.

Welcome to the fundamentally new digital economy – where the paper trail ends and essential information is instead sent racing at the speed of light across networks, and where economic advantage accrues to those individuals and organizations who are able to leverage the capabilities of today’s new information technologies to transform business and invent new business practices, not merely rearrange old ones.

In this eagerly awaited follow-up to his best-selling Paradigm Shift, global IT expert Don Tapscott answers the one question that burns on the mind of every forward-looking executive and manager: what does the new technology mean to me and my business?

In clear, jargon-free English, using actual examples of leading-edge organizations who are successfully riding the new IT wave, Don Tapscott reveals how the new technology and business strategies are transforming not only business processes but also the way products and services are created and marketed, the structure and goals of the enterprise, the dynamics of competition, and all the rules for business success.

But the remarkable journey doesn’t end there. The Digital Economy also takes you to the epicenter of a new convergence of computing, telecommunications, and entertainment. From Wal-Mart’s electronically linked purchasing systems to Sun Microsystem’s desktop university to Chase Manhattan Bank’s consumer video kiosks, and beyond, it discloses how result-hungry organizations are moving past simple reengineering to the complete IT-enabled transformation of the corporation.

The Digital Economy also tackles the dark side of the information highway – the first frank, balanced and comprehensive look at the perils of the revolution underway for every business, society, and individual. With this book Tapscott opens an international debate on the role of business in the transition to the new economy and a new society based on fairness, justice, and democracy.

At once a practical handbook and vision for the future, The Digital Economy belongs on the desk and the briefcase of every executive and manager grappling to make sense of, and profit from, the vast opportunities generated by the new media.

Seymour Papert, The Connected Family: bridging the digital generation gap (1996).

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