Not what the computer can do, but what the learner must do

This paper examines the history of curriculum reforms designed to improve teacher efficiency and control the learning process. The process of continual reinvention of methods that are designed to support a transmission model of teaching and learning have failed. They also form a backdrop against which more recent moves to support learning with technology can be understood and evaluated. The results are not positive, but rather suggest that the way that children and adults learn cannot be supported by tools that are based on the idea that learning is the transmission of knowledge. An alternative understanding, of learning as a creative act is offered as an alternative.