Computers in the classroom: help or hindrance for the teacher

Abstract

Five years ago the Guayamuri School, a private financing institution on Margarita Island, Venezuela, decided to start a project called Bachillerato web 2.0, which aimed to replace the sources of access to information and the administration of the programs of the different subjects of High Education, with a digital platform. Why computers in the school? Since 1990, information and computer technologies have appeared in a veiled form in the classroom. First in the most industrialized countries and then in Latin America, institutions and governments decided to invest in computer programs in schools as a measure to adapt to the new times. In 1987, the then presidential candidate of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, made a campaign promise that he called "a computer for every school" when he won the presidency. It became a national program that was expanded into Costa Rica's public schools and then permeated other countries such as Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela. The idea was that technology would be incorporated into education, the clash with the traditional school was hard and the experiences had their ups and downs, because the educational phenomenon is complex and modifying structures in an institution as traditional as the school was not easy. This massive program made it possible to understand that computers would not change anything if the different actors in education were not involved.