real life” people, and as a result do not develop necessary social skills. One of the greatest fears is that information technology in the schools will only benefit the rich and more academically able and male students. This will only serve to widen the gender gap, as males will have more access to computers and computer courses, than females. Another issue is that computers will defeat the attempts to reform education. In that, they will enforce the traditional form of hierarchical power structures. By placing decision making powers in the hands of the few who have access to and learn to use these new technologies, and thus create a reliance on them by those who do not. The chances then for cooperation between parents, teachers, administrators, and district officials are less likely. This is a serious issue in Newfoundland education, especially in rural schools. In rural districts, parents in general do not have a high degree of education. This means that they have a difficult time understanding what it is a teacher is doing in the classroom. However, their school experience gave them some common ground in which they could use to gain a limited understanding. With the use of new technologies, which these lowly educated persons do not understand, they become generally become hostile to it. This hostility towards the computer can bleed over on to the teacher. This breaks down the parent teacher relationship, which is a central factor to having an effective education system.The lack of teacher training in computers is a problem specific to Newfoundland. In the last decade of the twentieth century, the school boards generally did not hire new teachers. This was due to budgetary constraints. This means that the teacher in the Newfoundland class room is not comfortable around computers, and lacks the training to teach computer education effectively.*** Teachers can either be hostile to the computer, or not use it to i...
