Larry Cuban talks in a new blogpost about a research we mentioned here also last week. By comparing movies from the seventies and eighties with new ones filmed on the same public spots, one could compare the social interaction. Turkle was proven wrong (although she has her thoughts about it).

Cuban uses this relative impact of technology to discuss technology in education:

“When it comes to teacher use of desktops, laptops and now tablets, there also have been changes over time in frequency and duration of use. It is clear that since the early 1980s and with the rapid spread of electronic devices and software, more and more teachers are using computers for classroom lessons. In a study of teacher use of machines that I did in the mid-1980s, I predicted that a minority of teachers would be using computers in their lessons decades later. I was wrong.

Where I was correct, however, in comparing then and now was that high-tech champions (and vendors as well) expected that teachers using these devices with students would shift from teacher-centered practices to student-centered ones. Comparing then and now, that shift has not occurred (see here, here, and here)

So do all the new devices around the world that we now use to get information and communicate separate or bring us together? Even with the innovative research of  Keith Hampton comparing two points in time, the question remains unanswered.”