Room With A View

Wesley Fryer’s Moving At The Speed of Creativity Podcast this week is a recording of Dr. Stephen Krashen’s speech at the 2006 Encyclo-Media Conference, hosted by the Oklahoma Department of Education on 31 August and 1 September 2006 in Oklahoma City. It’s well worth a listen. Here’s a link to the podcast. A few things struck me. First, I’ve missed the boat when it comes to comic books. Dr. Krashen discusses research that shows a positive link between comic book reading and the long-term enjoyment/habit of reading.

Secondly, he challenged my thinking by saying he thinks US public schools should not spend so much money on computers but rather spend it on books. He’s talking about situations where school libraries have few books and children have very limited access to books. That’s not the situation where I teach. I’m thankful I don’t have to make a choice between books and computers. He comments that there is very little research that shows a positive correlation between computer use and reading improvement. I see two issues in what he says. First, we need more research and second, computer programs are often poorly implemented so the research will be inconclusive at best. All too often resources are spent on putting hardware and software in schools but little is put into professional development so that teachers use the machines effectively. To really make a difference we have to use computer hardware and software to teach differently. We shouldn’t be using them to do the same old thing.