In this regard, the hypotheses presented in the conference brochure are reflective of the manner in which computers were adopted by businesses. In the beginning, most corporations resisted desktop computers because they were comforted by the idea that a top-down, hierarchical flow of data mediated by a single mainframe computer would maintain control over information. Once computers started showing up on desktops, employees at all levels of an organization discovered that they could access core company data without having to send requests up through a chain of command. On one hand, such information access was celebrated as a method for letting people make decisions faster, thus benefiting the company. It also allowed for a flattening of hierarchies and a loss of many middle-management positions.
Paradigm shifts come when technologies are disruptive to the status quo.
On this basis, it is safe to conclude that technology has thus far not produced a paradigm shift in education. Our underlying model of how teaching should be done remains much the same as it was in the pre-computer days. In fact, it remains almost unchanged since the time of Horace Mann. During the intervening years we have nibbled at the edges of reform with our fierce debates about Dewey, Piaget, Gardner, Vygotsky, and other great pedagogical thinkers. We brought in cooperative learning and other improvements to instructional strategies, but the underlying assumption was that the core basis of schools, curriculum, and pedagogy was sound and not in need of transformation.