Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1018] Late contribution
From: Marshal Anderson (marshal@marshal.co.uk)
Date: Wed 31 Jan 2001 - 13:34:22 MET
From: "Marshal Anderson" <marshal@marshal.co.uk> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1018] Late contribution Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:34:22 -0000
Where do you all find the time for these discussions :)
I was interested in a lot that went on from the 'What Technology Next'
theme. Personally nothing would please me more than restricting development
to making what we have work reliably, rather than constantly introducing new
product. I've just started a new batch of students on the Open University's
'You, Your Computer and the Net' course - a course with one face to face
meeting, the rest is 10 months on-line using First Class. The amount of time
I spend either dealing with or referring on technical problems is absurd -
what I want is for it all to work AT ALL.
To get slightly political (?), I feel that it is in the interest of too many
players to keep pushing new, but unreliable and expensive, systems on
everyone; we're so busy playing catch-up that we consistently fail to ask
fundamental questions about the effectiveness of what we produce - even if
we do manage to get serious evaluation done, it becomes mostly meaningless
in the face of new techniques and technologies. We also fail to question the
received wisdom that education /needs/ to keep up with these advances. In so
many cases computer based/mediated learning is driven by the technology not
pedagogy and the gee-whiz factor wins out. I teach supply (substitute) in
schools in Derbyshire (UK) and several schools are spending serious money on
video conferencing facilities - thus far none have been able to explain to
me /who/ they will video conferences with, about /what/ and how that will
enhance the education of 9 year-olds.
Several contributions mentioned the possibilities for
creative/experiential/collaborative learning via ICT. I'm really passionate
about this, but it seems that the world generally is currently stuck in a
behavioralist/only teach what's testable rut. While the demand is generally
towards this approach, we will find it hard to develop the truly exciting
possibilities ICT offers as no one really want's the ATM.
This is a very quick reply - I know that some of the above is very blunt and
a rather superficial posting, but it's often how it feels to be in involved
in educational ICT.
Marshal Anderson
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