[Yr7-10it] new learning

Wed Oct 31 13:17:14 EST 2007

In my youth I had books and radio. People read books partly because there
wasn't much else to do

With TV, mobiles, ipods etc. the culture has changed and many students
expect to be entertained at school - isn't that the purpose of life?
Teachers cultivate sense of humour and the quick quip, it goes with the
territory

Media celebrities such as Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Peter
Garrett end up telling us how we should be running our lives. For some
reason Arnie doesn't seem the same to me when fighting the bushfires, cf.
his earlier exploits.

In his book "*Amusing ourselves to Death*" Neil Postman critically analyses
a TV show that was developed as part of "integrating TV into the curriculum"
- *The Voyage of the Mimi*, which featured a crusty sea captain, humpback
whales, navigational and map reading skills. Sounds educational - but chosen
mainly because it was eminently televisable

ICT is not really the same as TV although there can be and is a TV-like ICT
culture, web surfing mainly for entertainment - much of the blogosphere is
like this IMO

It seems valid to use ICT to engage students provided the educators know
what they are doing and can justify it in terms of articulated educational
goals - but what are those goals, how should ICT transform the curriculum?,
are we planning to do later versions of *The Voyage of the Mimi?

*I like this quote from alan kay:
"Computing spread out much, much faster than educating unsophisticated
people can happen. In the last 25 years or so, we actually got something
like a pop culture, similar to what happened when television came on the
scene and some of its inventors thought it would be a way of getting
Shakespeare to the masses. But they forgot that you have to be more
sophisticated and have more perspective to understand Shakespeare. What
television was able to do was to capture people as they were. So I think the
lack of a real computer science today, and the lack of real software
engineering today, is partly due to this pop culture."

-- 
Bill Kerr
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/

On Oct 31, 2007 10:20 AM, Russell Edwards <
edwards.russell.t at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:

> Jenna,
>
> > With this increase in technology within our world, the traditional
> > approach in teaching and learning is no longer a choice because of
> > this technological approach to education.
> >
>
>
>  I tend to think that this is all over-hyped. Mostly that just means
> that time and money is wasted, but when this really bothers me is when
> technological developments are given as a justification for displacing
> important parts of the curriculum. This is usually the catch cry of
> those rebutting arguments that schools are moving towards neglecting
> the basics.
>
>  When TV was invented, we didn't insist that the "traditional
> approach in teaching and learning" be abandoned and TV be integrated
> into every classroom. You could say the same thing about telephones,
> walkmans, etc etc. Like the current new wave of ICT, all these things
> quickly became pervasive and altered our society in very major ways,
> yet we didn't hear people calling for a massive paradigm shift in
> education. New technology gets incorporated but should complement
> tried and true content and delivery.   Having a calculator doesn't
> negate the value of knowing your times-tables, and having access to
> wikipedia doesn't mean you shouldn't know how our system of government
> works.
>
> cheers
>
> Russell
>
> On 30/10/2007, at 10:32 PM, Jenna Hubbard wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > What are your thoughts about the application of the New Learning
> > paradigm to pedagogy in schools - e.g students nowadays are
> > surrounded my technology, through myspace, you tube, instant
> > messaging, second life. Because of this increase in technology,
> > there has been a fundamental disconnect between the way students
> > think, learn and communicate and the way in which schools interact
> > with them.
> > With this increase in technology within our world, the traditional
> > approach in teaching and learning is no longer a choice because of
> > this technological approach to education.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Jenna
> >
> >
> >
> > From: htzelepis at msj.melb.catholic.edu.au
> > To: yr7-10it at edulists.com.au
> > Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] issue for exam
> > Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:14:13 +1100
> >
> > Thank-you so much.
> > :-)
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: claire
> > To: Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 9:37 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] issue for exam
> >
> > The Age Technology section always has some interesting issues.
> > http://www.theage.com.au/technology/index.html
> > Claire Bloom
> > Warrandyte High
> >
> > Litsa Tzelepis wrote:
> > hello,
> > does anyone know of a good website that looks at current ICT issues
> > in society.
> > I am trying to locate an interesting piece for my year 9 exam.
> > thank-you kindly.
> > :)
> >
> > -----
> > Litsa Tzelepis
> > Mount St. Joseph Girls' College
> > Learning Team Leader of Technology
> > htzelepis at msj.melb.catholic.edu.au
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