Joe Beckmann (joeb@oekos.org)
Sat, 28 Nov 1998 10:46:26 -0500
From: "Joe Beckmann" <joeb@oekos.org> Subject: RE: [ifets] still more tomorrows Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 10:46:26 -0500
The extremely literal and narrow view that computers serve only to increase
the measureable content of learning by children is a shibboleth, a sham, and
a conundrum. Computers - be they mac, PC, mainframe, or palm - serve to
manage information used by people. That's a function a lot more useful in
any classroom than most teachers, students, principals, parents or others
would presume, since most of these people don't look at classrooms as
information processing places. Most view classrooms as lading docks, where
information is shoveled into the gaping maw of student ignorance. Such a
view ignores more than 100 years of increasingly sophisticated and validated
research which indicates the student is an actual participant and the
teacher is an interactive (rather than one directional) provider.
There are other arguments for computers' availability to children as early
and as incidentally as possible. Some of these arguments, also very poorly
researched, suggest that parents, siblings, and teachers use computers more
effectively on their own behalf if they are showing off to a child. Some
suggest that teachers' self-worth changes dramatically in child care
settings which have computers available, and even more dramatically when
those computers are on the net. Some indicate that such teacher uses have
much more significant impact on student learning than student uses, whether
because of teachers' personal growth, professional expertise, or emotional
development, or because of the relatively naive use of computers by students
in lieu of more challenging tasks.
In any case, we - in education - are not making sausages, squeezing
knowledge into some gut-wrenching vacuum. We are engaged in learning, with
children and students at all ages, and regulating that learning - by edict
of some Senator or Congressman or the pope or Jerry Falwell - is both
anti-intellectual and futile. They tried it with the printing press, and it
worked for 400 years. Times have changed.
Joe Beckmann
ps. When Chris (below) suggests a complex bricolage, I think he misses
Sherry Turkle's point that such bricolage is largely accidental and
unplanned: tinkering is really just tinkering, and the learning it generates
may well exceed the planning which went into it. How else do whole's exceed
the value of components?
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ifets@omega.gmd.de [mailto:owner-ifets@omega.gmd.de]On
> Behalf Of SOCCJON1
> Sent: Thursday, November 26, 1998 4:17 PM
> To: ifets@gmd.de
> Subject: Re: [ifets] still more tomorrows
>
>
>
> On Wed, 25 Nov 1998 17:55:43 -0500 (EST) Bob Leamnson
> <RLEAMNSON@umassd.edu> wrote:
>
> > So where, then, is the cause of leaning? I'm convinced that the
> > cause of learning resides within the learner. I came to this
> > conclusion because no explanation of learning (Thorndike, Pavlov
> > and Skinner included) made any sense to me until I read Changeux
> > (Neuronal Man). His biological basis of learning showed me that
> > learning is not something that is done *to* anyone, it's something
> > we do to ourselves.
> It would seem to me that all education belies this. The
> idea surely is that someone else can by their
> intervention within the setting of the 'learners'
> activities 'lead them out'.
>
> Indeed only moments later Bob seems to accept this when
> he states:
> > The learner is the cause of learning--all else is
> > facilitation and inspiration.
> Isn't that what educators are interested in, the "all
> else". Educational practice aims to inspire and to guide
> or facilitate, it seems to me to be a very important all
> else.
> > Whoever wants to learn will make
> > optimal use of whatever technology is available.
> What evidence do we have for this panglosian view?
> Learners constantly need help reassurance etc. In their
> use of technology people left to their own devices often
> fail to use the technology at all, even an old technology
> such as a library. When learners do use the technology
> without help they often have a partial view of the
> capacity and possible uses of the system.
>
> On a more fundamental point what is the 'learning' that
> is referred to? Much of what educators do and what
> students learn is in order to fulfill the requirements of
> assessment and accreditation. Learning in this sense is
> doing what is required by others. There is no simple way
> a learner can know what is required of them. It is often
> the 'timely intervention' of the educator that interprets
> the rules of assessment into the individual setting of
> the student-learner.
>
> So what then of old and new technologies? I think that
> the key remains the intervention of the educator. I have
> also argued that technology is 'contingent', that is it
> is cobbled together by the learner and educator in the
> context of its use.
>
> E-mail is used alongside 'traditional' lectures, users of
> conferencing systems will use the telephone to talk
> privately outside of the system, distance students will
> travel miles/kilometers to meet each other. There is a
> complex bricolage constructed which is neither old nor
> new technology.
>
> Chris
>
>
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