[school-discuss] Educationally Impoverished Computing [was Korea brings ...]

[Les Richardson <les@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Frankly teachers, by and large, are pragmatic. They want their students 
to grow in their skills, understandings, knowledge, etc. (as do I as a 
teacher and parent).

In light of this, teachers will use whatever springs to hand.

In a computer lab 'fully equipped' with the latest dummied down XP Pro 
locked down by registration keys of every ilk and loaded with the latest 
"microSoft Office XXX", there isn't much to play with. Once they're typed 
a few friendly letters, done a mail merge, drawn a picture with MS Paint 
(if available), students are done. (usually by about Grade 8-9).

Nothing much "springs to hand" here, although most administrators and 
division boards are very proud of the 'new, state of the art, labs'.

What's a shibboleth? (It just popped into my head...)


What might be a solution to this problem of computationally impoverished 
pedagogy? (grin)


Les Richardson
Late Friday afternoon while marking final exams....








On Fri, 24 Jun 2005, Alec Couros wrote:

> Phil Carinhas wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Jun 24, 2005 at 11:43:21AM -0600, Alec Couros wrote:
> >
> > > I am not talking about MOST cases ... note this is about South Korea, 
> > > where it HAS been mandated, and my original concern is that is IS being 
> > > mandated.
> >
> >  It isn NOT mandated. Its part of a project they are rolling out.
> >  I see nothing the article that indicates a global mandate.  Every project 
> > needs to have a platform. 
> > If you had bothered to read the article, you'd see that the system was
> > designed to keep track of student records. It certainly does not
> > appear to be any type of teaching platform.
> Actually I read the article well and information on the S.K. gov website, and 
> related articles. I've done a lot of research on this, actually. In the 
> article you are reading, you see a CNet synopsis, not a comprehensive 
> document.
>
> It's not a"teaching platform" per se, but most schools in North America don't 
> have a specific "teaching platform" either. These are the tools given to the 
> teachers ... whatever desktop distro you have, related software, etc. Sure, 
> not a "teaching platform" but the tools which teachers have to use.
>
> Anyways ... my point obviously was not well-taken by some of you as all OSS 
> must have to be innately GOOD news I suppose. I'll try not to raise such 
> obvious critiques in this forum.