Re: [seul-edu] Discuss: How software educates.

[Kevin Turner <Kevin.Turner@oberlin.edu>]

George,
Thanks for the links.  It's just the sort of material I was looking for.

Some notes:

> Ben Schneiderman
> http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/ben
> See especially his article "Relate, Create, Donate".

who sees computers in schools not so much as vessels for "educational
software" per-se, but as tools for collaboration and creation.

 ** Question for us:  What do we have in the way of collaborative software?

> Roger Schank
> http://www.ils.nwu.edu/~e_for_e/people/RCS.html

Hmm...  From his book "Engines for Education", 
"The Software We Need":
http://www.ils.nwu.edu/~e_for_e/nodes/NODE-280-pg.html

EE> Entire curricula need to be created in software that represent
EE> alternatives to the existing curricula now in place in the schools.
EE> Doing this entails creating hundreds of hours of software just for
EE> one subject for one age group. [...]

and in response to: "Why can't the computer industry build enough
software to form school curricula?"
http://www.ils.nwu.edu/~e_for_e/nodes/NODE-281-pg.html

EE> [...] neither will suffice to generate large-scale high-quality
EE> educational software. Such software is out of the league of the lone
EE> developer working in the basement.  Such software is as costly to
EE> build as the payroll systems the large software houses sell.
EE> [...] Schools cannot afford to pay [...]
EE>
EE> Someone has to care enough to start this industry. Eventually there
EE> will be high-quality educational software in the home and in the
EE> schools. It will get developed when people who care about education
EE> get together with people who know about learning and people who know
EE> how to develop software. [...]

 ** Question:  Where is SEUL/edu in this picture?

The opinion expressed in EE seems to be that large-scale educational
software won't happen without government intervention.  Short of that,
their game plan is to develop tools that shorten the time needed to
develop systems of educational applications.  These tools fall into six
broad categories of applications:

1) Simulation-Based Learning By Doing Tools 
2) Knowledge Organization and Retrieval Tools 
3) Teaching Tools
4) Tools to Enhance Thinking
5) Interaction Tools
6) Course Creation Meta-Tools

Further description is at
http://www.ils.nwu.edu/~e_for_e/nodes/NODE-294-pg.html

 ** Question:  Can we look at SEUL/edu's projects in the framework of
	the above categories?

Other relevant nodes in EE:
Principles of Quality Software:
http://www.ils.nwu.edu/~e_for_e/nodes/NODE-209-pg.html

Demos of ILS (Institute for the Learning Sciences) Software:
http://www.ils.nwu.edu/~e_for_e/nodes/NODE-289-pg.html

Elsewhere on the ILS site:

The Learning Environment Design Group:
http://www.ils.nwu.edu/research/lbd.html

And their educational software and authoring tools:
http://www.ils.nwu.edu/research/LEDgroup.html

> and of course
> Seymour Papert
> http://papert.www.media.mit.edu/people/papert/

From his talk "Child Power":
SP> So I'd like to recognize, oversimplifying a complex issue-- two,
SP> let's say, wings to digital technology.  One is the technology as an
SP> informational medium and the other is the technology as a
SP> constructional medium, as more like wood and bricks and steel than
SP> like words and printer's type.

Papert believes that this constructive side of digital technology is
currently being underappreciated.  He believes it is here where the
potential for a great change in education lies...  Not just in the
colletion, organization, and dissemation of information (wing #1), but 
in the intellectual infastructure technology can provide.  To aid in
constructing and holding models too large for the student's mind to hold
alone, or too difficult and costly to build in meatspace.
(A lot of that is my interpretation, you may want to check to see if
that's actually what he was saying.)

 *  *  *

Reading from people like Papert and Schank has answered some questions
for me.  I've perceived a dilemma for a while between all the hype
that's being poured into technology in education, and what little I've
actually seen being used in schools.  They've helped paint a picture of
what it is that groups like SEUL/edu have to work towards...  What it is
that should be on a Linux box when it shows up at school.

I must say though, the pessimism expressed by everyone from Doug Loss to
Seymour Papert that teachers won't want to use whatever we produce is a
bit hard on the morale.  It'd be pretty rough to sit down at emacs and say
"Okay, lets write some code that my target audience is going to shun and
fear..."

-- 
Kevin.Turner@oberlin.edu | OpenPGP encryption welcome here, see X-DSA-Key