Lessons from the Great Underground Empire: Pedagogy, computers and False Dawn

Martin, Stewart

Abstract

The educational use of computers in the UK coincided with growing tensions between educators and government policy. This led to the imposition of a National Curriculum and policy that took scant account of research evidence or the views of professional educators. As a result of this unhappy coincidence, the UK failed to take early advantage of the educational benefits offered by this technology. The exploitation of the unique affordances of computers have seen a false dawn and dashed hopes but, slowly, a body of research has emerged that is now starting to identify where we should look and what we should do. However, the necessary changes would fundamentally alter the roles of teacher and learner within the educational system as well as government policy and this may go some way to explain government reluctance and the systemic inertia in the UK and elsewhere.

Citation

Martin, S. (2014). Lessons from the Great Underground Empire: Pedagogy, computers and False Dawn. In A. Tatnall, & B. Davey (Eds.), Reflections on the history of computers in education (1-25). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55119-2_1

• Publication Date: 2014
• Deposit Date: Jun 10, 2019
• Journal: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology; Reflections on the History of Computers in Education
• Print ISSN: 1868-4238
• Electronic ISSN: 1868-422X
• Pages: 1-25
• Series Title: IFIP advances in information and communication technology
• Series Number: 424
• Book Title: Reflections on the history of computers in education
• ISBN: 9783642551185; 9783642551192
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55119-2_1
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/1963247
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-55119-2_1