Gates on Learning with technology

Bill Gates spke last month at the Microsoft Government Leaders forum and talked about how technology will transform learning. Gates stated that the teacher is still a critical piece of the puzzle and that providing teachers in IT training is important. I think that almost all educators agree with this philosophy to some point. However, there is something that he said at the conference that is even more significant, and something that I think that we all need to pay heed to:

"We need to be humble in making predictions of how technology will affect education," Gates said, because people made big predictions about how TVs, video tapes and software would influence education that haven't come true.

Bill Gates syllabus for tech and education

I think that his comment is, as the British would say, spot on. Too often developments such as TV, laser discs and the such have been labeled 'silver bullets' that would revolutionize teaching and learning, only to fizzle out. Computers, technology, the internet and the such have been previously seen as the be all and end all of educational reform. The results have been far from what was hoped/promised, and there are those that quickly point to the failures in order to justify cuts to educational technology. We know that technology can improve the quality of teaching and learning, but we must avoid labeling it as an immediate solution. the transformation that technology can and will have on the entire educational process will take hard work, time, patience and money.
We need to be in this for the long haul and not promise magical overnight success.