Several individuals on listservs I follow have recently been focused on what they perceive as efforts to end hands-on learning. Educational Psychologists may also have encountered a recent article in the American Psychologist by Richard Mayer – “Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning?” (2004, 59, 14-19).
First, I do not read standards to exclude some student-guided work. In fact, I would argue that standards require students participate in some tasks that require decision-making, problem-solving, critical thinking, etc. I also think Mayer is correct in suggesting that allowing students to flounder about without guidance (scaffolding) is largely unproductive. I hope this issue is merely a matter of balance.
I have been reading Todd Oppenheimer’s The Flickering Mind. I do make the effort to read the various books (e.g., Cuban, Healy) that argue against the use of technology in schools. I will likely have more to say on this particular book at a later point. Until then, additional material on this position can be found at EdTechNot.
I am having a difficult time getting a good focus on the main ideas of “The Flickering Mind.” There are similar themes in many of these books – inefficient use of meager resources, diversion of teachers and students from core goals of education, lack of good data demonstrating technology is really effective, commercial pressure, etc. I have yet to determine from Oppenheimer’s anecdotes which or all he believes are core problems.
Arguing from anecdotes is something we all do. We tend to find or selectively recall those examples that fit the case we want to make and ignore those that stand in opposition. Actually, if we are skilled, we use some of each, but make certain the number favoring our position are far more numerous.
The problem with equipment breakdowns is one example of a potential technological problem. Some equipment does break down. However, it is difficult to determine how often this happens and why.
I have not had personal problems with computer hardware and so accepting the position that equipment is unreliable is difficult. Because I like to work on the “newest” thing, my real problem is what to do with the past generations of equipment. Multiple generations of the computers I have used accumulate under office tables and in store rooms. Some have been passed on to acquaintances willing to work with older equipment.
On a table in my office is the server I first used to gain personal experience in Internet applications. I turned this machine on in 1995. It has run with the exception of an hour here or there, the week they turned off the power because of the Grand Forks flood of 1997, etc. ever since. Year after year it rolls on (nearly a million pages served last year). I have several “used” machines waiting to replace the old “work horse”, but the machine simply refuses to quit. I have decided not to ever replace this machine as long as it still runs – it is kind of a loyality thing. If the machine can last another 10 years, we will simply retire together.
The machine on the right is the server (the “pizza box” design is a 6150/66 Power Mac still running system 7.6). In contrast, the machine on the left is a G5.
The U.S. Department of Education terminated AskERIC on Dec. 19. Educators Reference Desk to continue some services of the abandoned AskERIC. It appears that some interactive services (Ask ERIC) will not be available, but the database of lesson plans and connections to online information have been salvaged.
This is the 20 year anniversary of the introduction of the Apple Macintosh. The development of the personal computer is probably the one “process” that I feel I have lived and perceived as “historical change.” Talk of the Nation (National Public Radio) recently made available a program Celebrating 20 Years of the Mac.
Andy Carvin is one of those people who has created name recognition through his(/her) online presence. First with Public Television (if I remember correctly) and now with the Benton Foundation.
You can become familiar with EdWeb (the web site), WWWEDU] (a listserv – pronounced We Do) and now the “Waste of Bandwidth Blog.” A wide range of topics – educational and otherwise – are explored.
Cindy bought me a new iBook as a late Christmas present. We visited one of the Apple Stores in Minneapolis last weekend and she could not help herself. Over break I also installed Panther (OSX.3) on my desktop machine. Having two machines upgraded to run Panther gave me the opportunity to do something I have wanted to do for some time to try OpenOffice. I could have probably found a way to do this earlier, but the instructions I had made use of X11. X11 is free, but when I tried to download it before the only version available from the Apple site required 10.3. X11 (X windows I think) allows “UNIX types” a graphical interface and allows OSX users to open a UNIX application on the Mac desktop. Anyway, this is how I understand it and you hardcore UNIX types can certainly correct me if I am wrong. I don’t pretend to know exactly what I am doing here and that is part of what I find encouraging.
OpenOffice is pretty much an Open Source equivalent of MicroSoft Office to word processing, spreadsheet, presentation applications. It is actually a good deal more similar than just offering the same suite of applications. OpenOffice will accept Word, Excel, etc. files and will save back to these same file types.
I have been using OpenOffice now for a week or so (mostly word processing and spreadsheet work) and I have been very impressed. I would certainly encourage anyone using the Panther operating system to give it a try (see the following links for some help). The implementation I installed makes use of a third item that launches both XDarwin and OpenOffice. It is my impression that this makes the entire process easy for those of us without the background to function easily in UNIX. At this point I simply double click the appropriate icon and both X11 and OpenOffice launch. Once you are in the applications, the experience of word processing or using the spreadsheet is pretty much what you are used to (actually I have to keep reminding myself to use the control key instand of the command key).
Some schools, businesses and countries are taking a close look at Open Source software. Why? Well, most of the software is free. I can’t say the money is my personal motivation (I also purchased a student/educator version of Office over break – $129 – so I hope Bill is willing to forgive this post). I think the world of technology will simply be a better place if there continues to be a reasonable level of competition.
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