Barret Dolph wrote:
Teachers and learningFrom my own experience teachers want to know how to use computers in order to help them teach their children. Accordingly, they do not generally have a desire to become specialists. Perhaps the library provides a good analogy. Teachers must know how a library works in order to teach their children how to use it. The analogy, I believe, is a good one in so far as the students also do not use the librar
rnd@sampo.karelia.ru wrote:On Sat, 18 Sep 1999, Doug Loss wrote:>bickiia@earlham.edu wrote:
>
>>
>> But there are a lot of important ideas in computers that aren't just
>> little details. If a teacher wants to *understand* what they are doing,
>> they need to know these things. They need to understand the concept of
>> file types, the notion of folders/directories, the client/server aspect
>> of the Internet... there's a bunch of them. This isn't the same as
>> knowing how to set up a dial-up PPP connection -- that's just a skill,
>> useful to some and not others. It's about understanding the concepts
>> around which skills provide only a shell.
>
>I'm sure there are books out there that intend to teach such concepts as
>these. It's just that they're aimed as Computer Science majors rather
>than at the general public (which teachers count as in this discussion).
>
>It's well within the purview of seul-edu, and probably SEUL in general,
>to develop conversational guides to the concepts behind current computer
>use. We'd better use Linux in any examples we use, of course, but such
>guides would apply beyond the Linux comunity alone.
>
>We should come up with the basic concepts we want to illuminate, and
>then start work on the guides for them. This is something that doesn't
>require coding skill. You need to understand the concept (and probably
>have a good reference book on it available to help you on details) and
>to be able to write clearly. From what I've seen on this list, we
>should have an abundance of people able to do that. We should also try
>to get the currently-very-low-volume seul-pub list involved, as this is
>also up their alley.
>
>So let's discuss a bit just what concepts we should work on, and then
>get to it!Due to my work position I know many teachers and my observation
is that most of 'em want "ready things". Ready to use
methodology, ready to use programs, curricula, etc. Probably
this reflects the fact that in Russia they get paid very low
and to have enough money they need to teach 25-33 academic
hours a week...However, they like it very much when something called
"Telecommunications for Teachers", "Computer for Teachers", etc
is given to them for easy reading.They especially dislike when in a book there are a lot of new
terms which they get lost in.So, my chief always tell me: give them as many as possible
ready solutions...When I tried to do otherwise my lessons to them were marked
"not enough discussed" in the aftercourse questionaries.Teachers usually best understand the language and manner in
which they speak to their pupils...> Are teachers really so unwilling to learn?
They are just very peculiar about the ways to learn.
These are my thoughts...
Sincerely yours, Roman Suzi
--
Russia * Karelia * Petrozavodsk * rnd@rsuzi.pgu.karelia.ru
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