As I mentioned in last class, I have a subscription to Converge Magazine subtitled "Strategy and Leadership for Technology Education". I would like some thought and feedback to Steve Wozniaks comments about education and technology. This article is an interview between Steve Wozniak (founder of Apple) and Marina Leight and Cathlea Robinett.
(Article) In the earlier part of the interview Steve states that he is against all the conformity that happens in education. Children should be allowed to explore and enhance their creativity and not be placed inside a box. That I agree with. Sometimes we tell children that "this is fact and just believe it". What issue I have is with his comments on how a classroom should be set up. I am quoting directly from the magazine.
What kind of technology can revolutionize learning in schools? What role could technology play?
It would [be] along th elines of enforcing individualized learning. If we could reverse some of the paradigms of education to let kids of different ages all participate together in a larger room, then the few human teachers would browse and help students with certain problems that shoemhow the computer can't. Each person would have a computer that would be very personal and go at different rates. Some schools work this way where they have third through fifth grades all mized in. The computer would test a student every day and not let the student move forward until he or she has mastered a certain amount. It takes a lot of people running the system: the teachers in the class have to care a lot. They have to want the education to happen. Most teachers are that way.1
So, do you think that we should mix all student levels together and leave them to their computer to learn? Should the computer do all the teaching and teachers just facilitated? What about economic issues and students, there are a lot of my students that can not afford technology so the only exposure they have to a computer is at school. How does that effect homework or out of school work?
Just some thoughts......
3 comments:
Such a concept could work at certain times with certain groups of students. I doubt Mr. Wozniak has much classroom teaching experience. To think that a large room full of 9th-11th graders sitting at computers makes for an optimal learning environment he's crazy. One of the things about public education is that we try to teach everyone regardless of disability, learning style, interest, behavior, etc. Would putting every child in front of a computer to do the majority of their learning meet their diverse needs? Doubtful.
Such a vision does not bode well for the 21st century collaboration skills. Having reluctant learners work together was one of the most difficult classroom management tasks I ever dealt with. Billy doesn't want to work with Johnny, Susie wants to do everything and Amy will end up being absent half of the time ..... argh! Such activities require constant monitoring and reinforcement by the teacher until the students get the hang of working together efficiently. Individualized computer-based learning addresses none of these concerns.
I think what Woz is suggesting is more like how a library should operate, not a classroom. In a library, patrons are used to finding things on their own - and really want to do it on their own - while knowing they have backup if they run into trouble.
I'm in agreement with Kevin that this concept won't do much for collaboration skills, but it may be a useful model for after school tutoring or for students that want to learn ahead of the class.
I agree with Kevin, Wozniak probably did not have experience teaching in a classroom with "live" students all year long. So asking him for his vision of education you can expect his perspective to not include experiences of real classrooms. On the other hand the "education scene" will need to change from a lock-step mode of everyone progressing at the same pace with the same educational goals - all going down the same "track" (to use a railroad metaphor) and the same pace.
I also don't like the computer content management paradigm either. We get to know people and use tools (computer technologies are tools) - a facilitator role will still remain extremely important for education, it may look different (let's hope) but then that is what you will take lead with developing what teachers should be doing... most definitely something even better than Wozniak can envision.
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