S.J.E.Hobbs@open.ac.uk
Mon, 30 Nov 1998 18:10:52 +0100
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 18:10:52 +0100 From: S.J.E.Hobbs@open.ac.uk Subject: RE: [ifets] Teachers and Technology Refusal and cabbages and king s
Mmmm, searchlight and puzzles....thanks for the hooks to hand the
following ideas on Chris!
This fits beautifully with the current approach to using the 'access to
information' aspect if the 'new' ICTs that I am trying to build. As many
have said, the major benefit of the new letter in the acronym, the 'C'
for communication, is that users of ICTs can now both communicate with
each other and with a huge amount of information of various types.
Surely the best way to make use the 'C', the 'searchlight' and the
'puzzles' is to set intriguing 'puzzles' for students whilst supporting
them in the finding of the pieces .... whilst though, giving them the
chance to pick up other pieces along the way that are relevant to their
OWN interests and puzzles.
In this approach I do NOT suggest that the teacher/guide/puzzle setter
knows the all answer or has the best/model answer. If the question were
'what were the effects of slavery on modern America' alsorts of
interesting theories could be brought up and applied. Such 'discovery
questions' can and have been devised for more technical domains too. It
is the approach that matters, allowing students to follow up their own
lines of inquiry as well as getting basic specified data.
Tangentially, exams are currently a way of defining a subject and/or a
profession .... if you pass an exam, you are considered a member of the
group of people who can call themselves geologists, mathematicians,
linguists or accountants. Concern has been expressed that if we were to
take this 'discovery' approach, letting students flow though information
THEY find intersting, we'll lose control of what they learn and
therefore qualifications would be meaningless. This need not be the
case. It is quite possible to define for a student the questions they
NEED to answer (ie the basic subject knowledge ... in the above example,
where did the slaves come from? where did they work? include explanation
of reference to x and y social theory.....) but allow them to find
other information to fit their OWN puzzle too. After all, this is what
we, as researchers or problem solvers (practical or theoretical) do all
the time. We are restricted by the rules, knowledge and acceptable
practices of our disciplines yet to solve problems we always HAVE to
step outside the known, to follow tangents and semi-related thoughts, to
solve the puzzle we have been set or that we have set ourselves. If we
take this kind of approach, we will be using the best of the 'new' and
'old' resources and giving students cognitive tools to manipulate them.
Samantha
---------------------------------------------------------
Forum website: http://ifets.gmd.de/
Email address for sending message to everyone on the list ifets@gmd.de
Forum's contact person ifets-info@gmd.de
Join/Leave Digest or Normal List http://ifets.gmd.de/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Mon 30 Nov 1998 - 18:28:45 MET