While Ms. Coombs is quite right that education as we know it requires a teacher, her argument is an excellent example of the problems faced by professional educators. She raises a false premise that technology and teaching are somehow alternatives, and the quality of one affects the quality - or perhaps the quantity - of the other. Good teachers use everything they can to help as many learn as much as they can. It's not complicated at all.
To say that learning does not occur without a teacher is to say trees make no noise when they fall in the forest. It's a specious argument and dangerous to both the intellectual quality of the dialog and the good will of many of the participants: no one said teachers are less or more than they ever were. Defending against a non-combatant is offensive. To paraphrase the argument, by all means provide the teacher, but the teacher only affects some of the learning that's possible. Joe Beckmann -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Barbara COMBES Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 5:22 AM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: RE: [DDN] personal vis social and the academic Hi All, I have been watching this discussion with a certain amount of facscination. Having completed some research into the impact of technology in education it is interesting to see the same rhetoric - provide the technology and they will come. Students know what to do with it. Not so according to the latest research in elearning and technology in education. Text on screen, moving objects or simulations are no more interactive than TV, DVD or video. What makes any learning experience is the teacher and the way the learning tools are embedded into the curriculum. Only when this happens will students engage with the learning and participate at a level that can be described as deep learning. By all means provide the technology, but this is only half of the equation. We also neeed to think in terms of quality here. :) BC Convenor for the Transforming Information and Learning Conference http://www.chs.ecu.edu.au/TILC Barbara Combes, Lecturer School of Computer and Information Science Edith Cowan University, Perth Western Australia Ph: (08) 9370 6072 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
