On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 02:14, Phil Bartle <[email protected]> wrote: > > John raised the question: > "But I have a question. And this is addressed not just to you, but to > everyone. Why is it that educators -- the people whose job it is to teach > students about new technology and concepts -- do not want to learn the > technology themselves?
People are interested in learning things that will save them work, make them money, improve outcomes, or give them enjoyment. Until computers can be integrated into the curriculum, they do none of these four things for most teachers. Solving this problem needs to address several intertwined problems. Two of them stand out to me. * the perverse incentives in education, such as teaching to the test * the impossibility of integrating computers into the curriculum until every student has one 24/7 for use in class and for homework The second will be straightforward to address in the long run, although quite difficult to explain to those who don't see the bigger picture. We need digital replacements for textbooks, and we need a known base of free software that every child will have so that we can integrate that software into the learning materials and the curriculum. Sugar and Free Software in general give us this base on OLPC XOs and on other computers using Sugar on a Stick. A number of organizations are interested in creating, testing, and refining the new materials. Funding would help, as we discussed a few days ago. The first can be tackled when computers start to be integrated into education, and we find that we can teach most topics more deeply and at earlier ages. Then we will have some space in which to explore without testing pressure, until the tests start to catch up with classroom practice. By then, we should have further advances that will give us a different set of spaces to work in. I do not have a solution to the political problems that currently bedevil curriculum development, except to wait them out, and do as much as we can on everything else. Some of those political forces, such as Republican support for Creationism and against meaningful sex education, are predicted to die out in 15-20 years due to demographic shifts. I can give you the statistical basis for this prediction and a number of instances where we see the effects now, in issues other than classroom education. The ultimate solution to the problem is this: Teachers who dreaded having to learn and use OLPC XOs have become their strongest advocates. The verdict is clear from multitudes of teachers in the field: "I can teach now." Once this is experienced widely enough, the education schools will teach the computers to students who grew up with computers, and no new teacher from then on will have the current problem. > I am not taking a position on use, or ease of use, of technology, I am just > curious why this attitude exists. Thoughts? > Cheers, > John" > > The old saying went: > Them that can, do > Them that can't, teach > and them that can't teach, teach teachers > > I have been an educator al my life. > In the widest sense of the word. > When I turned forty, my magical ability to learn languages disappeared > I have been steadily dropping in my learning abilities since I was three > In the eighties my fellow social scientists thought I was some sort of > a nerd (not a nice term then) because I was the only one of them with > an apple two clone and modem and able to use the university computer > from my home for grading, composing and so on. > Now I find it hard to keep up with all these educators using wikis and > other web .0 technology > So I am now in my mid sixties, retired and disabled. > Age might have something to do with it. > Perhaps I should put this together into another rant. . . . . > :-) > Cheers, > Phil > > If the coach does the pushups, > The athlete will not get stronger > Community Empowerment: > www.scn.org/cmp/ > WikiEducator > http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Philbartle > Join our discusssion forum > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Community_Strengthening > > > > -- Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. http://www.earthtreasury.org/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
