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I'd like to comment on David's first proposition. 1) Does an institution get a better payoff by developing a single incredible NCRIPTAL winner or a bunch of "boring, old- fashioned" drillpractice/tests/tutorials targeted directed at specific high-need courses in the institution? I don't think I've had the experience that he has had. I have been thinking about the introduction of a technology into educational institutions and believe that I'd opt for the second althernative. I am aware that openly opting for the second alternative is rather like committing suicide in a group of people devoted to the advocacy of technology. However, that is exactly why I choose this dangerous course of action. My reading, which had focused on sources such as ; (Lipsky, 1980), (Darling- Hammond Wise, Feb. 1981),(Cohen, 1988) and (Schwille et al., 1982) have made me very sensitive to the power of the "street level" bureaucrat" which is what the classroom teacher is, whether we are talking about the elementary school variety or the graduate institution senior professor or anyone in between. David Cohen, (1988) has made a persuasive argument that asserts that institutional role behavior will be more resistent to change the closer the proposed change is to the true heart of the role. We all believe that the new technologies are truly revolutionary, their potential is not that they will just change how we teach but will actually change the content of the discipline as well. Such powerful tools cannot be expected to be quickly incorporated nor widely adopted as they go right to the heart of what and how we teach. Better, that we should allow for their gradual integration by using them in ways which do not threaten the core of the teachers' role and belief systems; even if in so doing we realize that they are not being used in ways which stretch their potential. Sources Cohen, D. K. (1988). Educational Technology and School Change. In R. S. Nickerson, P. S. Zodhiates (Ed.), Technology in Education: Looking toward 2020 (pp. 231-263). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Darling-Hammond, L., Wise, A. E. (Feb. 1981). A Conceptual Framework for Examining Teachers' Views of Teaching and EducationalPolicies (Rand Note N-1668-FF prepared for the Ford Foundation). Rand Corp. Santo Monica, Ca. Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-Level Bureauacracy. Russel Sage Foundation. Schwille, J., Porter, A. C., Belli, G., Floden, R., Freeman, D., Knappen, L., Kuhs, T., Schmidt, W. (1982). Teachers as policy brokers in the context of elementary school mathematics. In L. Shulman, G. Sykes (Ed.), Handbook of Teaching and Policy (pp. 370-391). New York: Longman.
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