[LINK] Library naming (was Apple iPads for Victorian School Students)

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

On 12/06/2010 10:16 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>> To me a library is a place where you can go for information. It can 
>> aid learning but education is far more than learning. ...
>
> Yes, the move to "flexible learning centres" is more than passive 
> information supply. It is easy to see what looks like a library with 
> the books removed and think there is not much happening there.
>
>> At least some of the education process (quite a lot, IMHO) should be 
>> about teaching, where a person with knowledge and expertise interacts 
>> with students in individual, guide, "push" and feedback mode. ...
>
> Yes, that is what I do when I am teaching. It is just that I use a
> computer to help me do it. David Lindley calls this "Computer 
> Professional Education using Mentored and Collaborative Online 
> Learning": 
> <http://www.ijcim.th.org/v15nSP4/P09SEARCC_ComputerProfessionalEducation.pdf>. 
>

The problem with on-line teaching is that you lose two of the three 
major communications channels. You don't get the full experience of 
interactive sound (not just voice) and there is nothing kinesthetic. In 
fact even in the third channel, vision, most of the focus is on reading 
text and diagrams - there's no interactive body language on a student to 
teacher or of student to student basis.

On-line learning or education is sterile compared to the rich experience 
of face-to-face teaching and mentoring.

> If you strip off all the fancy technology and terms, the actual 
> teaching method has not changed much since Aristotle was in the 
> business: 
> <http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/mobile_elearning/index.shtml>.

I don't agree with that statement. The web page you cite has nothing on 
teaching methods. The phrase is not used, the word method is not used 
and the word teaching appears once, but only in the context of location. 
Your web page is about gadgets, not teaching.

This page:
http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Aristotle.html

says: "In the Aristotelian teaching act, the teacher instructs a learner 
about some object, some body of knowledge, or some discipline. Teaching 
and learning never represent merely an interpersonal relationship or the 
expression of feelings. They are always about disciplined inquiry into 
some aspect of reality. ... the school should cultivate and develop each 
person's rationality (112-113, Ornstein)"

I think your statement "the actual teaching method has not changed much 
since Aristotle was in the business" is rather wide of the mark. The 
Aristotelian teaching act is push teaching based on instruction. On-line 
learning is a pull model based upon unfocussed presentation of material.

> Yes, what a teacher does is to guide the students.

Guidance is different from teaching. A road sign can provide guidance 
but doesn't do much in the way of instruction. A teacher should 
instruct, not guide.

> Yes, many people read the free web version of my Green ICT course and 
> ask "is all there is to it?": <http://www.tomw.net.au/green/ebook.shtml>.

I've asked myself the same question.

-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
email:	 brd at iimetro.com.au
website: www.drbrd.com