Another problem is how and who and why some of them insist on regulating student behavior rather than inspiring student learning. "Properly limited so as not to become dominant" does not inspire passion - either for technology or for it's regulator.
Joe -----Original Message----- From: Dr. Steve Eskow [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2005 10:55 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 'The Digital Divide Network discussion group' Subject: RE: [DDN] personal vis social and the academic The concept of "redundant" students and "superfluous" students is hard for many to grasp. Clearly Joe Beckmann is one of them: <<Regarding redundancy, I still don't agree. One of the benefits of technology - sorry to infuse this into the discussion, but it gets increasingly critical to addressing the "musical chairs" "zero sum game" you raise regarding school size - is that the capital value of curriculum, institutional resources, staff development, and the whole infrastructure of schools and colleges can be shared by many more players, people, institutions, and courses.>> What is the "capital value" of being able to play the game yourself, rather than watch it from the stands? What is the "capital value" of a teacher-student conference with the teacher able to spend time with the student because he does not have 300 of them to teach--or 3000? What is the "capital value" of a course that encourages essay writing rather than multiple choice quizzes and exams, and allows the teacher to take the time to comment carefully on each essay? You are falling into the language of the school as factory, with its rhetoric of "accountability," "productivity," and, of course, "capital value." What you ignore is the curriculum choices hiding in your language. The one-way lecture, can of course--to use your words--"be shared by many more players, people, institutions, and courses." For that kind of sharing the giant school is as plausible as the small school. Indeed, the opposite is also true: for that kind of sharing you need no school at all: home schooling will do nicely as the scene of that "sharing." The virtues of the small school are the virtued of the small community. They have to do with unmediated face-to-face communication and community. The vices of the small school are the vices of the small community. They have to do with provincialism, insularity, a lack of the diverse learning opportunities the large community offers. Technology, properly limited so as not to become dominant, can compensate for the vices of the small school. The problem can become how to keep the technoutopians and the technoromantics from expanding to fill the teaching and learning spaces of the small school. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] And the small community. _______________________________________________ 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.
