Burbules' and Callister's "Risky Promises"

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Latest update: February 22, 1999
Faculty on the Site.

Access the Web. You may have Netscape, or Netscape Communicator, or Internet Explorer, or some other browser on your machine. Not all browsers produce the same visuals. Try to find machines with different browsers so you can learn what the different browser effects are. If you are using your own machine at home or work, that may not be possible. Then try to find different browsers at school.

The first place I would like to take the class on the Web is to the site of a professor at the University of Illinois. He includes on his Web page the articles and papers he has presented. One of them, on the risks in our reliance on high tech, matters very much for this course. I would like you to browse through it.

Nicholas Constantine Burbules and Thomas A. Callister, Jr., "The Risky Promises and Promising Risks of New Information Technologies for Education," Presented at the Education/Technology conference, Penn State University, Fall 1997.

All five questions are based on the Burbules and Callister article, which can be found on Burbules' site. You are expected to help each other, both in accessing the paper and in finding the answers. Even though they are set up as multiple choice, answer them in 25 words or less. Just use the choices to help you construct your answer. You may e-mail from one machine, but before the end of the semester I expect each of you to learn to send e-mail.

Jeanne at jcurran@csudh.edu
Subject line: cmpex01: risky promises
First message line: Your name and class.
Second message line: Name of each member of your collaborative group. Body of message: xxxxxxx

Try to answer in 25 words or so. Make each answer integral, so that I can read it without reference to the exercise or the question itself. DO NOT ANSWER WITH MULTIPLE CHOICE LETTERS!

1. Burbules and Callister discuss several ways that higher education has misunderstood high tech. What is the first of these?

   1. That high tech can't be relied on to work well - machines are often broken.
   2. Poor schools often have less access to the needed equipment.
   3. People tend to expect that high tech is the answer to all our educational problems.
   4. High tech is really just a marketing ploy.
   5. None of the above.

2. Burbules and Callister call the second misunderstanding of high tech the "computer as tool" perspective. What do they mean by that?

   1. That people have "too much faith in the technology itself."
   2. That the computer is a neutral tool.
   3. That people, not the computer, are the problem.
   4. That new technologies bring unintended problems along with the intended solutions.
   5. That it is a sign of progress that students no longer need to know math to do statistics.

3. Burbules and Callister speak of a post-technocratic approach to high tech. What do they mean by that?

   1. That in just the way that the head of the coin goes with the tail, "bad" outcomes from high tech will go with the "good" outcomes.
   2. That there are in fact discoverable answers to the use of high tech.
   3. That we must weigh the cost of the "good" effects against the "bad" effects.
   4. That people like Foucault are wrong to be afraid of high tech.
   5. That good measurement of indeterminate consequences will solve the dilemma of high tech.

4. Define in 15 words or less "panacea."

5. Define in 15 words or less "excoriate."

E-mail your answer to Jeanne.