Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4109] Re: IFETS-DISCUSSION digest 481
From: Martyn Wild (martyn@intuitivemedia.com.au)
Date: Tue 05 Nov 2002 - 08:20:36 MET
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 18:20:36 +1100 From: Martyn Wild <martyn@intuitivemedia.com.au> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4109] Re: IFETS-DISCUSSION digest 481
Thiru
Some responses..
>When the attention of students and teachers is focused on hardware
>or software problems and the content being learned and taught at the
>same time, does this not cause split attention?
You are confusing here, cognition as it is brought to bear on
learning; and solving an operational problem. To provide an analogy:
consider yourself learning to drive a car. At a crucial time, the car
you are learning in (being taught in) breaks down. What do you do?
Well, you certainly don't continue to try to drive and at the same
time (cognitively) learn how to fix the car. You do a number of
things: you might change cars and continue to learn to drive; you
might give up learning and walk home, perhaps to try again another
day; you might even take a hammer to the car in frustration; or you
might call a mechanic and wait for the car to be fixed before
proceeding with your driving lessons. If you are a budding or expert
mechanic (who can't drive), you might fix the car yourself and
continue your lessons later. But you cannot drive AND fix the car at
the same time, in the same 'cognitive space', even although you might
wish you could. It's an impossibility.
I could add, that in breaking down, as a learner you are given the
unique opportunity and context to learn how to fix the car - in fact,
its a truly authentic setting for learning, since without the car you
can't continue to learn to drive. So fixing it has a real-world, and
to you, the learner, a very valuable outcome. What better environment
within which to learn divergent yet valuable skill sets.
>I agree with you that real-world problem solving, and authenticity
>are good things. But if the same valuable opportunities for
>problem-solving in authentic, content-rich environments are possible
>with the use of readily available textbooks or encyclopedias (these
>could be in print or on the computer, online, or on CD-ROMs), why
>waste valuable instructional time trying to find needles in world
>wide haystacks?
Because the affordances of technology use MAKE it worth while. And in
many cases, authentic, content-rich learning environments are ONLY
available if we use technologies (consider simulations of molecular
behaviours; models of complex systems, such as the human body; etc).
I'm really not sure what you mean by reference to, 'why waste
valuable instructional time trying to find needles in world wide
haystacks?'..
>I do teach my students how to search and evaluate information on the
>Web, and I also take them to the library and let a librarian teach
>them how to search library databases (many of them are web-based).
>However students can also learn these valuable skills of searching
>and evaluating information using tools other than the Web.
Its dangerous (sort of) to get fixated on the Web as a technology. Of
course, all technologies that have a reason for use have a reason for
learning, including library-related technologies such as books and
cataloguing systems; and of course, real-world computers.
>Complexity of ideas and problems is a good thing in education.
>However, complexity of technologies in education is not such a good
>thing.
Why not?
>Please do continue to share your thoughts regarding POLTS.
>Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you and others.
>
>Cordially,
>Thiru.
>(M.O. Thirunarayanan)
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