[Edu-sig] Interactive learning: Twenty years later

[Phillip Kent]

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I don't want to over-prolong this discussion but some points that Arthur 
made merit a comment...

At 16:39 28/06/2003 -0500, Arthur wrote:
>.........................
>...... the truth is that to the extent that it
>has been studied, there is simply no evidence that computers are making a
>difference, or if the are, there are great negatives that offset the great
>positives, and we are left at zero.

I don't think this is true. There is plenty of evidence that computers can 
make a difference to learning - but usually in the case of rather specific 
situations of very small numbers of teachers/mentors, students and 
computers. The continual problem has been to "map" those isolated successes 
onto the mainstream of institutionalised education - it is at that point 
that the evidence dies away into neutrality.

What you arrive at, then, is as much a socio-political problem as a 
technical one. Maybe computer technology is just too new (only 20 years 
old, really) for educational institutions to do anything sensible with it, 
and maybe (as left wing thinkers tend to assert) the prime function of 
social institutions is to replicate existing class structures, and squash 
out any kind of liberating force for change.


>Obviously I think great positives are possible.
>
>The greatest educational benefit of PyGeo was to myself, in creating it. It
>will never have nearly the same benefit to anyone else.  Happens to have
>been one of the most productive educational experiences of my life. So the
>point is not to use PyGeo or the like, so much as to help and facilitate
>others in finding ther own PyGeo.
>
>............. We are a consumer society, and I would like to see education 
>exempted.....

This is well put, and it is the core of the message that needs to be pushed 
into the mainstream. So this is my point - we DO know some of the ideas 
that work - what is at issue is how to nurture them to the bigger scale.

- Phillip



++++++
Dr Phillip Kent, London, UK
mathematics  education  technology  research
p.kent@mail.com      mobile: 07950 952034
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