Class 8: February 25, 2010

Intersecting Ideas

I guess it would be safe to say that I like Tradition (this post is up, on the night, even when we had been offered a blog week off).

In this post, I'll address the articles presented tonight and some of the discussion that precipitated out. Here's a link to my PowerPoint and scanned Kirschner et al. article (so that you can see my markings and notes on the paper). You'd notice that there is some marked in the paper that wasn't addressed. I presented the schema pertinent to overall learning: "Is there a best teaching/learning practice that is consistent with what psychology has demonstrated to be the way we learn and work best?" How does technology figure into that question? Is technology itself learned best in a constructivist environment? I'm a supporter of guided discovery and use it in my classroom.

More to follow...

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March 2

Here’s the more to follow. I’ve taken my time to get this up. By-the-way, those who missed the BYTE Conference last Friday (Feb 26th) missed a pretty good show. Denis may have been pleased with the address given by the keynote speaker; he basically echoed a lot of what Denis has been professing since I began the ed tech program in 2007. As for the rest of it.... lots of tools.

Back to my intersecting ideas bit. I won't say anything about precipitating discussion as I had originally said I would, just comment on the papers.

The three papers, I thought, were quite related. Kirschner questioned methodology, teaching and learning and what works. What’s the best way? That’s individualistic, but in our paradigm of cattle-car education (l’enseignement en masse), we have to have a method that works best for the majority. It’s way too expensive to individualize everything, isn’t it? Perhaps. But, maybe we can individualize everything if we throw enough technology into the system. Computers to the rescue? Oppenheimer suggests not. He even quotes Steve Jobs as saying that technology won’t fix the American educational system. In Oppenheimer, it is also said that at least one big architectural firm still values “knowledge of the hands.” Further, it says that students really don’t need much computer training to be able to do a job or function as a university student – two weeks to two months. So what are we doing, really? The sizzle is a sizzlin, but is there any steak? The Clinton administration, so Oppenheimer suggests, embraced technology in education as if it were a Messianic medicine for an ailing American educational system. Now back to Steve Jobs. Is there an end to this? Well, let me bring Schoffner into the mix. She and her colleagues discussed standards to now be recognized to develop technological literacy, for which she supplies definition upon definition. The definition for technology literacy is interesting in that is frames technology as a tool: what it is, how it works, and how it can be used to serve us to achieve goals. And, ultimately, these goals are professional goals. Standards are set at the top, by professional societies, and trickle down to the kids.

Ok. So what's the point? There's so much said in those articles and I've discussed the top of the iceberg. The the articles suggested that there is a best way to teach and learn, but that does not necessarily mean computers/technologies are the be-all-end-all, and that there must be standards because of the demands of professional life. In a nutshell, is this not all about what is needed to survive? Isn’t that what these three papers have in common? And isn’t that the goal of basic education? Survival of course can mean individual or group, and in the case of the group, it might mean a country generating a better GDP/GNP.

I'll stop now; it is suposed to be a week off. Also, I want to read Jap Zero. I’ll leave asking this question: What’s the best way to arrange all the multi-coloured polyhedral bricks so that people can be happy? In other words, what's the best way to live? I think we need to teach people that all of us need to ask that question. What works for each of us? If constructivism works, then use/do it. If tech works, use it. If standards work, use them.