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[seul-edu] Discuss: How software educates.
This list is full of talk about educational software, but one subject
I've missed is how software educates. So I'm going to spew thoughts for a
bit here, and hope some interesting discussion results. If you get
tired of my thoughts and would like an opportunity to spew your own,
questions are at the bottom.
...
Thinking about what sort of educational software one might write, I
encountered two different categories: software that assists
teachers, and software that takes the role of teacher.
An application for assisting teaching would be like a highly evolved
blackboard. It would have more knowledge and provide more complex
feedback than a blackboard, but it would only come alive to students
under the direction of a mind that knew how to address them. Like the
blackboard, the teacher uses it to illustrate a point... Sure, you
could use chalk, but chalk might not be the medium of choice for
visualizing how the gravatational attraction between moving massive
objects changes over time.
I'm thinking here of relatively free-form simulators of various sorts.
Where a wide range of interaction is possible, but it helps to have
someone to point out where it is that the interesting relationships lie.
Yes, students are encouraged to use the same tools after class to
explore the world, but it would be of limited use to them without having
at least gone through a tutorial. Conway's "Game of Life" is a
fascinating environment, but how many students would discover floaters
on their own before they got tired of seeing cells die and left?
Yes, the presentation of tutorials for these tools could be computerized
too, but that's still a sharp contrast from a piece of software that is
expected to *be* the teacher. With the computer as the teacher, it is
not only responsible for presenting the material, if it is to be
anything other than a glorified PowerPoint presentation, it has to
assess and adjust for the student's level of mastery over the material
as well.
That may be doable for simple stimulus-response style teaching, things
like multiplication tables and the capital of Arkansas... and that has
its place, dull though it may be. But I don't see software taking over
for teachers where a deeper understanding is required... For things
like Gestalt-style teaching and teaching by discovery, the teacher needs
a higher level of mastery over the material and a more intimite
relationship with the students than I perceive today's machinery capable
of.
...
I then talked to a friend of mine who tutors math at a local elementary
school. She said that she saw the role of educational software as the
same as her own: to convince students to spend time with the material.
To make it fun. Edutainment. Presentation and assesment are Somebody
Else's Problem to be dealt with inside the classroom, outside class you
just want to keep their minds working on the subject for a while longer,
be it through games, competition, or whatever...
Oops-- Thought quota reached.
Questions:
How can we use the new media to more effectively present material?
What are the exploitable differences between the new media and the
texbook? the lecture format?
How is the software/student relationship similar to or different from
the teacher/student relationship?
the tutor/student relationship?
What roles do people perceive computers taking on in the educational
environment?
Has educational software engendered new methods of teaching that were
not previously practiced?
What assesment tools/methods/technologies exist?
Has assesment by software progressed beyond multiple choice?
What resources exist to help the educational-oriented software author?
the software-oriented educator?
Which existing software packages are regarded as exemplary?
What texts or journals discuss the above topics?
..."Class, tonight's homework is to download fooapp from seul.org/edu and..."
--
Kevin.Turner@oberlin.edu | OpenPGP encryption welcome here, see X-DSA-Key