Ed Lowry (ESLOWRY/0005387775@MCIMAIL.COM)
Sat, 09 Jan 1999 13:29:34 -0500 (EST)
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 13:29:34 -0500 (EST) From: Ed Lowry <ESLOWRY/0005387775@MCIMAIL.COM> Subject: [ifets] Re: Instructor Competencies
Jo MacDonald and Ingrid Mellone ask:
> 1. What competencies should instructors have in order to
> incorporate more advanced technology into their instruction, ...
To provide immediately applicable answers to this question
requires reviewing the debris of a disaster area (whether viewed
from an educational, technological, economic, or ethical viewpoint).
For decades the computer community has found it profitable to
entangle users in complexity as a matter of policy. The resulting
flood of needless complexity being forced on school children looks
like one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of technology.
See "Misdirections in Information Technology" on my website. From a
more strategic viewpoint, a broadly fundamental competency for
educators is to understand the fine structure of information.
Learning to work carefully with various kinds of information
pervades education. Working carefully with almost anything,
including information, requires understanding and controlling
its fine structure. Pursuing the implications of those rather
obvious facts leads to a major redirection of educational
technology based mainly on simple, inexpensive, and enduring
considerations of information representation rather than
complex, (profitably) expensive, and rapidly obsolescent
hardware and support capabilities. See "Formal Language as
a Medium for Technical Education" on my website.
Unfortunately, the information technology community is not likely
to be very helpful in understanding the fine structure of
information. The know little about how data object structure
affects the quality of information. For many years, in my
experience, they have acted like architects who have no idea
what is a reasonable structure for a brick and find discussion
of the subject threatening. See however, "Toward Perfect
Information Microstructures" on my website.
Educators who would benfit from understanding the fine
structure of information include senior administrators,
such as university presidents. At present they could be compared
to presidents of automotive companies that build cars with
square wheels which are purchaced uncritically from suppliers.
If they had a better understanding of what is possible, they
would not tolerate the cruelty now being inflicted on their
students.
Edward S. Lowry
Acton Mass. USA
eslowry@alum.mit.edu
http://www.ultranet.com/~eslowry
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