Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1379] Re: IFETS-DISCUSSION digest 201
From: Bill Ellis (tranet@rangeley.org)
Date: Thu 15 Mar 2001 - 21:30:24 MET
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 16:30:24 -0400 Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1379] Re: IFETS-DISCUSSION digest 201 From: "Bill Ellis" <tranet@rangeley.org>
BE:
I think the people on this list understand what I should be saying better
than I do. Your summaries and comments lead much futher, and put ideas in a
context, beyond my comprehension. There is little I can add but will make a
few comments below'
> From: Charles Nelson <c.nelson@mail.utexas.edu>
CN:
> Making learning meaningful is certainly important, but, although
> students may know what they want, I somehow doubt that most students
> know what they need, at least most of the time anyway. Actually, I
> doubt that most people know what they need. How does one learn to
> know what they need rather than merely want?
BE:
This is probably a point that needs some thought -- want vs. need.
They may well be too closely linked to discuss separately. IMHO if a learner
does not "want" to learn some system of facts and ideas s/he won't and can't
learn them and doesn't need to be taught them.
>From another point how can any learner or any teacher know what someone else
will need. That may be a major error of the school system, it is assuming
it, big daddy, knows what young people will "need" in their lives. This may
have held some truth when for the industrial age and a life as a cog in a
machine. But in the Information age the content of learning will be much
less important than the context in which we will live. An affective future
learning system must prepare young people to be lifelong learners able to
meed their educattional "needs" what they "want" any specific area of skill
or knowledge.
CN:
> This is an interesting distinction between the individual and the
> system that is usually either ignored or conflated and which makes me
> wonder: What nonlinear roads might systems follow? How does
> nonlinearity benefit the system (not merely the individual)? Can we
> devise nonlinear paths for learning systems that will benefit both
> system and students? What does nonlinearity mean for the individual
> as opposed to the system? Is it simply having a "broad array of
> learning opportunities"? How do the nonlinearities of the individual
> and the system affect each other and how are they connected?
BE:
IMHO the system cannot predict it precise needs any more than an individual
can. The ideosphere is changing so rapidly today that neither individual or
society can predict accurately what will be the future need. From the
social need we might (God forbid) listen to Mao and let "Ten thousand
flowers bloom." Society will progress only when the right flowers have
bloomed but in the emerging society know one can predict which flower will
be the right ones. So a maximized diversity will be required.
Non linearity will benefit society because: 1) at any time there will be
some individuals ready to move forward and 2) because at any time ever
individual will be able to shift directions in the direction society has
needs.
In the past the linear expectation of society lead the school system to
train people to meet the future needs as envisioned by politicians,
planners, and administrators who thought they could prediced future needs.
As a result too few solid state physicists working to create electronic
chips and other such devices, and too many trained to envision nuclear
devices. Too many dacotors learning to cut and drug, and too few learning
to comfort and laproscope. Too many economists involved in creating profit,
too few creating social and ecological solutions.
"Devising onlinear paths" is an oxymoron, IMHO. We need to think of
predicting the futurer as we think of predicting the weather. We will never
know what is going to happen, but we can be prepare for a wide variety of
options by let individuals be prepared for a diversity of contexts able to
move as need be.
> Charles Adamson wrote:
>>The question is where is the point of maximum learning. I suspect that it
>>would be different for the above two cases, but
>>that is only a guess. How do we determine where these points are? The only
>>way that I can imaging is to carry out a series of experiments to determine
>>what conditions effect the location of the point and where the points are
>>under specific sets of conditions. This appears as if it would be a major
>>project that one that was quite doable. It might just be that the optimal
>>point is relatively stable in terms of number of links, but we won't know
>>until someone does the work.
BE:
Again, IMHO, words like "where is the point of maximum learning" is couched
in the terms of the past learning content. In learning context we cannot
predict the maximum but need to be prepared for optional maxima. We have to
think in terms of a fluid future with fluid citizens in a fluid ideoshphere.
What society or the individual needs at any moment is the fluidity to move
with the conditions.
IMHO, Bill Ellis
I don't follow "research" in this field, not being a educator but a
physicist, but I have learned a lot from the book "Infinite Wealth" by
Barry C. Carter m(ButterworthHeinmann, Boston/Aucland 1999). He does a good
job of contrating the Industrial Age with the Information age from a
business point of vies.
B---
---------------------------------------------------------
List address to send message to everyone:
ifets-discussion@catfish.valdosta.edu
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
Forum website: http://ifets.ieee.org/
Forum's contact person: kinshuk@massey.ac.nz
Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.ieee.org/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Fri 16 Mar 2001 - 07:57:18 MET