Passing eNotes
Requiring student laptops in classrooms? Eventually, sure. But I suggest not until you start tenuring a new generation of professors to be more entertaining than porn and flash games. These speculative professors would have to present information in ways that can't already be found on Stanford Philosophical Encyclopedia or Wikipedia or Sparknotes.
Without a massive shift in classroom presentation, mandatory laptops will mark the beginning of a mass classroom exodus, if not a corporeal one, at least a redirection of attention from the stage to the (computer) screen.
Good luck with that.
Three or four friends and I used to huddle together in the back of a certain Philosophy lecture and pick apart with snot-nosed impudence everything the professor would say. The syllabus for this particular lecture had been typed and thoroughly drenched in White-out. The liquid corrector had built up layers like tree rings--visible even after photocopying--and was over-typed thusly: Spring 2003. After careful study, I was able to identify no less than 8 separate layers of White-out. That means this man's syllabus had remained unchanged for at least 4 years. His translations from the original Latin were in a steady and practiced cursive. I was taught cursive in third grade, and told not to use it anymore in fourth.
For this man, Xeroxing represented the bleeding edge of technology.
His field of expertise would not be surprising.
How could this poor, disconnected, stodgy, boring, laconic, static--though unquestionably brilliant --man ever hope to compete with the internet? He wouldn't have held a candle to minesweeper.
Against 25 individual nodes whizzing, humming, thrusting information and excitement on demand to student's desktops, homeboy brought sparklers and a puppet show.
That's to say nothing of the inherently subversive nature of instant messaging.
My friends and I were grouped, passing notes kindergarten style, written in the margins, then eventually all across the page of our notebooks. We passed them around. If we caused to much havoc his attention would be diverted to us, and we'd have to chill.
Imagine what wifi and computers would have done. All of a sudden this shuddering mass in the back middle becomes dispersed and decentralized. We would be 5 individual subversive cells, working in tandem across the room. Now imagine the other 20 kids, not actively mocking him, but forced to choose between the words of Thomas Aquinas in cursive on the overhead projector accompanied by one droning commentary, or Thomas Aquinas' words in Ariel, with pictures and links to separate resources, including fifteen or twenty separate commentaries--all on demand.
The choice is obvious. All of a sudden the professor has no cred, he's a syllabus generator, essentially worthless.
Even as a Computer Science major, class was attended only under threat of pop quiz. The Microsoft knowledge base was a far better tutor than any 30 year veteran of Hewlett-Packard who took an early out to teach. The English was generally less broken.
In four years of college, I probably had two professors who adequately utilized the power of the internet to inform and drive discussion. Two . . . were . . . Adequate.
For their classes, computers and the internet at large were vital and added deep and fecund layers of experience and participation.
For everyone else, the internet was a foe--an excuse to not read the middle third of that Bronte novel, to skip Spinoza completely.
Academia's first big concern with the free flow of information over the internet was the risk of plagiarism. This underestimated both the power of the net and the desire of students to learn.
The internet is not endangering University positions, it's not even really endangering the intellectual property of great (and lesser) minds, it's challenging those minds to delve deep into the resources available and realize what students already know: All the crap you spent days at the microfilm reader researching when you were an undergrad, is now a meta search away. It's digitized, OCRed, abstracted, and cited in MLA for the enrichment of undergrads and doctors alike.
Use it.
If this had a track to begin with, I think I've gotten off it.
Why do you pull up in valet parking with a Benz that is rented,
Fronting on a cellular phone that doesn't work - why?
Why are you smirking up your face, making . . . obnoxious facial scenes
like I supposed to be scared - why?
posted by Luke @ 9:58 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
The strange thing is, now that I think about it. those kids that DID have lappys and brought them to class actually did take notes with them.
I remember it specifically because they were without exception business majors over at least 29, and all were notoriously loud hunters and peckers.
So[smack][smack][smack][smack][smack][smack][smack] the [smack][smack][smack][smack] bird [smack][smack][smack][smack] girl [smack][smack][smack][smack] at [smack][smack] the [smack][smack][smack] end [smack][smack][smack] of [smack][smack] the [smack][smack][smack] 4th [smack][smack][smack] section [smack][smack][smack][smack]represents [smack][smack][smack]. . .[smack]
Then again, it would've taken a papal bull to get my Uni to require computers. So I bet even my experience was more dated than any of yours
I believe the Roman-style classroom lecture system has been outdated since it was implemented. That is, I don't think it's at all useful, and should be abandoned entirely.
I have been pondering for years the problem of making education systems educational. It is too easy for people to slack off, pass without learning anything, and graduate with the same degree as a person who actually did learn a thing or two. Nobody is watching students individually. Nobody knows them personally. Guidance counselors are as close as we get, and in my experience they have too much on their plate to get to know each student. They may know them all in passing, but they're not keeping tabs. There's no time for that.
We are not guaranteeing, in grammar school, secondary school, or our university system, that anyone is learning anything. And what is happening is that people aren't learning anything.
I truly believe that a big part of the reason is lack of pressure to learn. There is plenty of pressure to get a degree, but there is virtually no pressure to take this knowledge with you into the world. Our society doesn't check up on people enough. In valuing our independence, in staking our claims as "individuals" who are "more than numbers", we actually relegate ourselves to number status, in that we all refuse to be bound by people's expectations. We are uninteresting, no more than our name and SSN on paper. We choose slacking as our expression of independence, and give up that individuality we supposedly crave.
Meanwhile, in other countries, there are rigid systems of education that are successful in using the lecture-style classroom. This is because in those countries, education is not the road to a degree, but the road to a career. The learning doesn't stop after university. University is just there to give them a head start and a foot in the door. And they make good use of it.
The reason the lecture system doesn't work for us, then, is that we have a distinct lack of personal motivation and external guidance. But there is another problem.
Nobody knows what they want to do "when they grow up".
So many of us just get whatever degree we can manage. We hope and pray that somehow the degree will magically lead to a profession we can be happy with. And then we graduate and flounder around lost, because all we knew was the road to the degree.
This, too, is an effect of lack of guidance, I believe.
Children hear "You can do anything you want", but they aren't guided to choose anything. They learn procrastination at home from watching their parents, and put off making a choice about their future. It's a luxury of the United States that our children don't have to go to work in the family business...but this luxury is crippling, because our minds are the most fertile when we're young, and that's when we should be learning the skills we need for our future careers.
What are we learning instead? How to watch TV.
I've established that a lack of guidance and accountability is at the root of our educational problems in this country. The solution is more difficult to see. I would first like to say that I do not advocate a governmental department for micromanaging every person and leading them to their career. I believe that this problem, like most problems, should be solved at the local level.
Community. Community bonds bring forth the greatest accountability. You can't shoot Farmer Jed's dog and then go sit next to him at church. And you can't profit from a community you're a part of without giving back to it somehow.
If there are strong bonds between people, connections that are used to help raise each other up, then people will try their hardest to do their own part--to pay the emotional debt.
How do we apply a sense of community to a college campus, where people come together from all over the world?
The solution I've been thinking of involves organizations that specialize in one type of education, a strong sense of belonging and being known not for what's on paper, but for who you are, and a shift from lectures to discussion sections and, ideally, one-on-one master-apprentice relationships.
Instead of trying to do everything, a school of thought would specialize. It would be located in a city, to ground it in reality. It would be affiliated with some local, non-university entity that actually does work in that field. Students would learn theory and train on the job. The school would also be affiliated with every company in that industry that was interested in affiliating itself with that school, so that additional training could take place via the Internet or by trips out of town, and "networking" within the field could begin early.
General education requirements would be fulfilled at the high school level, or achieved through self-study. We have the Internet. As you said, Luke, use it.
In my ideal situation, a student would have a mentor who worked in the field, and he would learn directly from her. The mentor, and the mentor's colleagues, would know the student, would spend time with him outside of class, and would chart his progress. The student would feel important, and this would motivate him to do better. Upon graduation, the student could start work with the mentor immediately, or go to one of the other affiliate companies.
I haven't quite fleshed out how it would all work...but that's where I am right now. I do believe that if we continue to teach the way we do now, with no true accountability or identity, our nation of dunderheads is going to inspire malice from countries who actually produce thinking minds. In fact, I believe this is already happening. To my mind, bettering ourselves and continuing to learn and grow is our responsibility as citizens. For our privileges of freedom and our very high standard of living, we absolutely must give something back...and yet there are so many who do nothing but feed off the system until they die. This system is critically flawed and will not sustain itself forever.
The only way we can even become close to changing our schooling systems is baby steps. For instance, why don't we NOT have summer vacation. This is somethng that was important back in the 1920's when the 80% of the US population farmed, today that number is closer to 20%. Parents don't need their kid at home helping them anymore. How about we use that time to educate?
Of course, I say that all now. But Oregon can't even fund their current school system year, dropping off a whole month one year. Why can't people see that taxes can be a GOOD thing.
-Amygdala
http://neuron.blogdns.com:8080/
You're right I think. Specialization isn't going to cut it in the coming years.
A technology-centered economy is too fluid to support the kind of employee colleges and vo-tech schools used to churn out.
That's why i think colleges need to adopt more holistic teaching methods. My uni was Jesuit. Their tradition is heavy on Philosophy, Lit and Communication.
I ended up majoring in two of those, but even if I hadn't there is no denying the affect these things had on my ability to think, adapt and express myself.
It has a huge impact on reasoning and other cognitive skills.
If you're going to specialize in anything, it should be learning to think and problem solve effectively.
We're drifting, but the discussion is interesting, so I'll help us paddle in the wrong direction ...
I think the way we teach English is pretty stupid. You take syntax/grammar/structure/whatever classes until, what 9th grade (inclusive)? It's only then that you start to study literature and poetry at all (and I tend to think that it's tough to teach students composition -- and have them enjoy it -- until they love and appreciate literature). Besides, I would much rather have spent more time with Mr. Sather than Mrs. Lescilla or even -- bless his strange and stupid nature -- Mr. Wolf.
How many times have you heard people say, 'I never learned what x was or why z until I learned a foreign language'? It's not until the elements of grammar are studied in a comparative context that most people learn or understand them.
Why not, then, let students absorb grammar by learning foreign language? The added English education time that would go into literature should ensure that students could still write as well -- probably better. The logical thinking benefits that come from studying the taxonomic and structural elements of grammar probably pale in comparison to the similar benefits that come from Mathematics, so there probably isn't much to be lost in that respect by ditching devoted grammar study.
Even better, we know that people learn foreign languages better the younger they are, so the earlier age focus is appropriate.
Plus, it's just cool and -- sometimes -- useful to be multi-lingual.
What do others think about modest proposal?
--Mike Sheffler
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable cone of ignorance
Eh, it's a nice proposal, but not as good as the original modest proposal.
Jonathan Swift to the poor of England: "Eat your children."
I meant this modest proposal (referring to my own). And, yeah, I was hoping to get some Jonathan Swift baby-eating laughs in there by using that particular phrase.
Just for the record, I think that A Modest Proposal was a solution for the perennially poor Irish. Recall, the sub-title is For Preventing The Children Of Poor People In Ireland From Being A Burden To Their Parents Or Country, And For Making Them Beneficial To The Public. Sounds like a great idea to me, by the way. I wonder if baked babies are as good with salt as are baked potatoes?
--Mike Sheffler
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable cone of ignorance
You're right, 'twas the Irish.
Jesus, I just re-read it a second ago too.
I need to get more sleep. And also try to kick this mental retardation thing
though, to be fair to me, England ruled Ireland at that time, did they not? eh? eh?
I think children should learn at least one additional language during the years they are the most receptive: the window between ages 3 and 12 (some would even argue 8, so start early!).
Phonics also need to be re-implemented in grade school. Desperately.
"Phonics also need to be re-implemented in grade school. Desperately."
I have almost no phonic ability whatsoever. What pathetic phonics i was being taught in grade school was a lot harder than whole-word recognition for me at that time. As a result, I am not able to sound out words that i don't know. I have very bad spelling skills. I can't spell words that i don't remember seeing. Someone, luke perhaps, used "segue" in their blog. I'd never seen it in print before. I didn't know what word that was except for the context in which it was used. People laugh at me when i butcher words that i don't remember how to pronounce. (i used to say "pronunce" for pronounce and "thee" instead of they...the ridicule was relentless)
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