Assume the role of an educator, parent, or student with one of the following opinions or counter opinions.  The opinion may not be what you personally believe, but you should be prepared to support it with as much logic and emotion as you can muster.  You will be matched with someone espousing a counter opinion, so be prepared to defend yourself.  If you have not thought about these issues very much, you will need to do some reading.

Opinion:
Computers might replace teachers and put them out of work the same way machines have taken jobs from our factory workers.

Counter Opinion:
Computers will liberate teachers from mundane tasks, such as delivering drill and practice exercises.  They will have more time to devote to the uniquely human aspects of teaching.  Teachers could never be replaced by computers.

Opinion:
Computers are cold impersonal devices and they relate to children as though they are machines - without love, care, or feeling.

Counter Opinion:
Computers can individualize instruction to meet the personal needs of each child more effectively than a teacher in a class with 25 students and no computers.

Opinion:
Computers teach linear, logical thinking and neglect aesthetics and values.  There is a risk that we will educate people to be valueless, tasteless, maybe even Godless technocrats.

Counter Opinion:
Computers are tools that can be used equally in all endeavors including art, philosophy, and even religion.

Opinion:
Boys like computers more than girls like computers.  The computer revolution will give boys further advantage in an already male dominated world.  Computers and educational software are usually developed by males and they have an inherent male appeal.

Counter Opinion:
While boys seem to use computers more than girls do, this disparity is largely cultural and will disappear when teachers and software developers use a nonsexist approach to educational computing.  Computers will eventually give females power in a new world where information is more powerful than aggression and physical strength.

Opinion:
Children who use computers will learn to communicate with machines instead of people.  There is a risk we will create a generation of social illiterates.  There is some truth to the stereotypical "computer nerd."

Counter Opinion:
A computer is simply a medium to improve communications among individuals through applications, such as word processing, telecommunications, graphics etc.  The inarticulate "computer nerd" is largely a myth.

Opinion:
As a software author, you are finally starting to show a good profit on a program you have written and copyrighted.  After working on it, part time, for two years you are confident that your educational program, using speech synthesis, will be effective in helping blind children learn arithmetic.  You would like to devote full time to developing educational software for the blind but you cannot afford to quit your regular job and still make payments on your new house.  You have evidence that your profits are being eroded by teachers who freely copy your program instead of buy it.  Your attorney says this is illegal, and he is urging you to sue the offending teachers for copyright infringement.

Counter Opinion:
As a teacher of the blind, you want to help your students overcome difficulties with arithmetic.  There is no money in your school's budget for software, so you temporarily borrow the copyrighted arithmetic program from a teacher in another school that purchased it for $100.  The program proves to be very effective, so you make a "free" copy for your school.

Opinion:
Educational computing is so important to the future of our children that the state should mandate computer literacy for all teachers.  An educational computing course or competency test should be required for all students getting a teaching certificate.

Counter Opinion:
There are too many requirements to get a teaching certificate already.   Aspiring teachers should not be forced to learn educational computing if they are not interested.  There are many excellent teachers that know nothing about computers.

Opinion:
Computers cost too much for most schools and take too much time to learn for teachers and students.  The money and effort could be better spent elsewhere.

Counter Opinion:
Computers deliver cost effective instruction.  Furthermore, they are easy, and fun for most teachers and students.

Situation:
Your middle school has several computer terminals in the library which can be used to access the internet.  Several parents of children in your class have complained of their children bringing home sexually explicit text and graphics the parents consider to be objectionable.  The children admit it is common practice to "download" this type of material from the internet using the school's computers.

Opinion:
As a school-board member you are concerned about students using the internet.  You believe the school has a duty to insure students do not see any text or graphics that would be considered pornographic, based on the standard of the community.  The teachers and librarians should monitor and censor everything the students send and receive on the internet according to community standards.  If the teachers and librarians are not able or willing to do this, the school-board should order the termination of the internet connection.

Counter Opinion:
As a professional educator you believe students should have unfettered access to the internet.  On the whole, the internet is a tremendously valuable educational resource.  Although it is possible to find plenty of junk, most of the information is useful and educational.  In that sense, it isn't much different from a large book store or public library.  Children are probably more likely to find sexually explicit material at the local mall than on the internet.  The school cannot be responsible for everything a student may access on the internet.  It would be wrong to deny student access to the internet just because some parents object to some of the material their children may find.

Situation:
Morehead State University and other schools have taken measures to prevent or discourage students from downloading material from popular web-based music sharing services such as Napster (central server based) and Gnutella (peer-to-peer file sharing).  Students have complained this is a violation of their rights.  What do you think?

Opinion:
Students who use music sharing software may intentionally download and record copyrighted music or other material without paying the artist.  This inconsistent with the capitalistic principals of our country, and it might be illegal.  Downloading music is bandwidth intensive, and it slows computer resources for other users.  Furthermore, school resources are public property, and these resources are not intended for personal, noneducational use.

Counter Opinion:
Students have just as much right to download music as they have to record it from the radio or from a CD.  It is not the business of a school to enforce copyright laws.  Education requires the free flow of all sorts of information including music, and public schools are inherently not a capitalistic.  School computer resources are like school library resources.  They should be available for personal use.  School libraries have a long tradition of freely lending books and music for personal and private use.  On-line information resources should be treated the same way.

For some suggested readings related to these issues you can click here.

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