I thought I would wrap up day one and what I learnt with a cartoon I found quite some time ago. It is a theme that needed refreshing in my own personal thought. Perhaps the learning experience many who put these conferences together (especially sponsors) would not want me learning….
All this technology does not make great educational process…. If I see another interactive whiteboard I think I will……. ??????
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Hi Brett,
Very interesting cartoon – expecially after your session with Gary Stager yesterday! It’s always good throwing a spanner in the works and stirring the pot (so to speak) in the name of critical reflection!
Thanks for keeping us posted … but what I really want to know is, how did your pressie go yesterday mate? I’m sure you knocked the socks off your audience, but would love you to blog about how you went anyway!
Cheers,
Michael
I’m not sure I agree here. As Clarence Fisher writes:
“I’ve tried to make sure that I’ve shown them lots of tools and given the kids a lot of options about how they get their information. I stand firmly by the philosophy of choice and allowing kids to learn to use the tools which help them to make meaning out of the information swamp they exist in. I believe that if I show them 5 – 6 tools and each student chooses the 2 – 3 which help them the most, they are learning to use those which work best for them.”
http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/remote_access/2006/02/early_adopters.html
Tools for tools sake may not mean much but placed in context, exposure to many tools can be a valid approach. My analogy might be this. If you show a bunch of would be carpenters a bunch of tools and told them to use them without a specific purpose, that might be foolishness but if you told them you were going to build a house and they could use and explore with any tool they choose, it would likely bring some interesting results.
Hi Dean,
I understand what you are saying…. But try asking some of the venders to explain the pedagogy behind these tools…. Most have no ideas… Too many vendors of these tools are not educators. If educators can take the tools and find great educational ways to use them, then that is great…. They should be the ones demonstrating and sharing. Not a conference full of vendors that are in it to make a quick buck out of another market. Adults get wowed about these gadgets, kids don’t becuase it is their life and if we don’t enhance the learning with these tools or gadgets the students get nothing out of it.
Thanks for your thoughts…. I will post more later as I have more thoughts on this.
Good point. I guess using my original analogy it would be like your big hardware store hoping to sell tools with no idea or care about what might be built.
I guess it’s simply a matter of perspective.