The Challenge of Technology: A Symposium on Educational Technology. An IDEA Occasional Paper.

A symposium of industrial, governmental, and academic leaders was held to consider new technological devices and systems and to develop guidelines for teachers and school administrators on how to prepare for the coming age of technology in education. Topics under consideration included educational objectives, the historical and sociological background for the technological revolution in education, the need for the development and implementation of systems for general access to the collections of major libraries, and the potential applications in education of various scientific advancements, particularly in the realm of computers. Computers hold great promise as a means of individualizing instruction. But computer-assisted instruction is still in the experimental stage, and its widespread use in elementary and secondary schools remains some years away. Computerizing American schools will be an extremely expensive venture, with a large portion of the outlays going toward the purchase of machinery and the development of programs to be used. Complete re-education of teachers and school administrators will be necessary to enable them to cope with the evaluation and selection of computer-input material. The specific role of the teacher is yet to be defined. Much research needs to be done on the learning process, considering not only how to teach children, but what to teach them. (BB)