Only technolgy can save our schools

Abstract

Schools and in general educational organizations are among the most conservative institutions in society. Society changes very quickly but schools and the way of learning at school have been the same for centuries. For this reason many people are convinced that schools, as we have known them so far, have come to an end. The most important social change in schools is the appearance of the digital technologies of information and communication: visualizations, animations, interactive interfaces, simulations, computer games, the Internet, shared virtual reality. These technologies, and in particular simulations, allow us to learn not by reading or listening to words, but by seeing and doing, for example by altering the parameters of a simulation and by observing the results of these variations. Educational organizations are closed to new technologies because these would determine a complete transformation of the entire educational system. But the use
of the new technologies at school would make it possible to reduce the distance, today so large, between children who are “born digital users” and school, to push the development of these technologies in directions which are more positive from the cognitive and the social points of view, and to have a school which really works for both boys and girls.