Thinking about educational technology

Thursday December 15, 2011

I'm thinking a lot about educational technology and continuing the experiments I began with a rather dry implementation at naldaramjui.com. This article (from The Washington Post's Answer Sheet blog, one of the most consistently good sources of interesting educational perspectives I know of) really puts in words a lot of my thoughts - especially this:

What is happening in the classroom that could not be duplicated by a computer?
If the answer is “nothing,” then there is a problem. In fact, I believe that if teachers can be replaced by computers, they should be. By that I mean if a teacher offers nothing that your child can’t get from a computer screen, then your child might as well be learning online. On the other hand, no screen will ever replace a creative, engaged, interactive, relevant, and inspiring teacher, especially one who takes advantage of the precious face-to-face experience of people learning together.Collective, communal, collaborative learning is key to many of the ways we all work now, often in collaborative and distributed ways. How is the school working to teach real, human, management, leadership, and collaborative skills in the unique environment of the classroom?

The article is by Cathy Davidson, and it makes me interested in possibly reading her book, Now you see it.

This post was originally hosted elsewhere.