Vincent Ehiaghe (ngozi@cosmos.co.za)
Sat, 26 Sep 1998 21:06:06 +0200
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From: "Vincent Ehiaghe" <ngozi@cosmos.co.za> Subject: Re: [ifets] Another try - (Fwd) Size of Learning Market; Sto Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 21:06:06 +0200
Mary & Jaclyn,
I can't agree with you more. The sentiments that you raised is correct in our case in South Africa.
I have just come back from the 3-day National Education Computing Conference (NECC98) held in MichealHouse. It is unfortunate that most people think more of equality rather than equity when it come to the issue of re addressing imbalance in schools.
No doubt the use of ICT changes the paradigm of learning. Is is not probably better to provide the necessary infrasctures needed for the smooth running of K12 schooling environment, rather than flooding schools with computers only to lose them all overnight. Most schools do not have access to both phone and power that I do not believe that such schools will need computers so badly.
Even in some city & township schools, adequate manpower is hadly enough.
As you pointed out, teachers may not be adequately underpaid, my biggest worry is the lack knowledge of ICT integration. This results in teachers converting such lessons to free periods believing that as long as pupils are "busy" painting and playing FreeCell games, everything is fine .
I am glad that NECC98 addressed the other side of the WWW. If as the saying goes half education is a disease, how much more potent is wrong or unprepared education. The internet can provide that as well, and this is why we teachers must know what we are doing.
Good integration must not be downplayed. We must be sure that we are able to distinguish between the need of ICT in schools for the competitive survival of any nation as opposed to the need of turning education into business. I have no problem with the latter view, just that in my opinion, education should be a priority and not skills training.
Vincent Ehiaghe
Holy Trinity High School
Atteridgeville, Pretoria.
South Africa.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jaclyn Whitehorn <jaclyn@bama.ua.edu>
To: ifets@gmd.de <ifets@gmd.de>
Date: 24 September 1998 11:55
Subject: Re: [ifets] Another try - (Fwd) Size of Learning Market; Sto
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Mary -
That's very true! I must not have made my point clearly enough: that
computing is a *tool*, but a very important one. I do agree that you
should not be given a Bachelors degree in anything if you can't perform
basic tasks on a personal computer. However, I get frightened when
(K-12) schools spend money on computers for all the classrooms when: a)
the school buildings themselves are badly in need of repair, b) the
teachers are underpaid, and they need to hire more, and c) the teachers
that are there don't know how to integrate the computer into the course
work. [This happened recently in Tuscaloosa.] Computers are not the most
important thing, especially when they become nothing more than toys that
the teachers let children use when they are done with their real work...
I think at this point it is still more important for college students to
be computer literate than it is for K-12. Before I get hate mail, I do
realize that not everyone gets to go to college, but when the
educational system is dealing with limited resources, we must look at
priorities. When we graduate students who can't read, we have no
business focusing on computer skills!
Every college and university should require computer competency.
Period. When I was a student, I worked on a committee to try to add a
basic computer course to the core curriculum. It hasn't happened yet,
but I think people were listening, and I think it will happen. Funny,
though, when I tried to write an essay on this for a scholarship, I was
advise not to, in case the committee was made up of English professors
who might be offended!
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Jaclyn Whitehorn * User Service Consultant
Seebeck Computer Center * University of Alabama
jaclyn@bama.ua.edu * (205)348-8720
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