Does Anyone Else Find Watching Simpletons Discuss Technology To Be Oddly Reassuring?

[Asher]

I wonder if a company makes software for both PCs, laptops, tablets, whatever as well as massive high-res multi-touch displays for the front of the classroom...?

Just to be more specific, you're talking about the transition from the "Sage on the Stage" mentality of teaching of old to the new collaborative learning of today. Technology enables both and it's rather baffling that you think they're mutually exclusive rather than complementary.

[Elok]

Boards, smart or not, are intrinsically designed for a lecturing/demonstrative style. One person, teacher or peer, works on one board while others watch. That style is of limited use--not no use, but limited use. It's generally better, whenever possible, to let children learn by hands-on experience. Whatever enhanced features a smartboard provides will not change this. Given limited resources, it makes far more sense (I think) to funnel cash in other directions. If the district is just overflowing with cash, sure, buy some of those. But technology is not a magic bullet, and most teachers don't become teachers to fiddle with devices all day. The best teaching I've seen is done with remarkable low-tech ingenuity.

[Hauldren Collider]

The problem, especially in the USA (but surprisingly not so in the UK & Canada), is teachers are curmudgeons, technophobes, or generally so burnt out that they can't be bothered to figure out how to actually use the technology aside from a projector and ink platform. The fault isn't with the technology, it's with your education system and who you hire as teachers.

"The problem isn't the technology, the problem is the people who use it!" If your target audience can't use it effectively, it's your fault. They don't exist to conform to your expectations, you exist to conform to theirs. That's why they are paying you, and not the other way around. But you should know this already, with all your industry experience.

I am deeply skeptical of your assertion that teachers are substantially different in the US than Canada, by the way. Just the uniformity of your statement reveals its absurdity. The diversity of school system policy across the US is incredible and you're making a blanket statement.

[Aeson]

The main problem with putting tech in classrooms is that wealthy kids will grow up with distasteful memories of technology that they associate with being in classrooms. This will lower their drive to go out and work themselves to death for the next 40 years so as to be able to afford their own technological doo-dads. The economy will crash, and poor people in third world countries will lose their jobs or have to take benefit cuts (which is only really possible if they start having to give blood and/or organ donations every time they go to work).

This is why Walden needs to be taught in English class at an early age, and students/teachers should not be allowed to have anything more technologically sophisticated in class than a mechanical pen.

[Hauldren Collider]

In this thread: Asher manages to insert his Canadian inferiority complex into his educational boondoggle inferiority complex.

[Sava]

What an odd thread this has become.

[Asher]

Boards, smart or not, are intrinsically designed for a lecturing/demonstrative style. One person, teacher or peer, works on one board while others watch. That style is of limited use--not no use, but limited use. It's generally better, whenever possible, to let children learn by hands-on experience. Whatever enhanced features a smartboard provides will not change this. Given limited resources, it makes far more sense (I think) to funnel cash in other directions. If the district is just overflowing with cash, sure, buy some of those. But technology is not a magic bullet, and most teachers don't become teachers to fiddle with devices all day. The best teaching I've seen is done with remarkable low-tech ingenuity.

Did you not read my post, or did you just not comprehend it?

[Asher]

"The problem isn't the technology, the problem is the people who use it!" If your target audience can't use it effectively, it's your fault.

You can't make people use technology if they don't want to.

You are a terrific example. That attitude you have is precisely the same one many of your 40+ year old teachers have, which is why they can't and won't use the technology effectively. They don't even give it a chance.

You can't fix stupid.

[Asher]

In this thread: Asher manages to insert his Canadian inferiority complex into his educational boondoggle inferiority complex.

I find it amusing you don't see any inherent issues with how the US public education system is run. Here I was thinking you would agree with me that the US system where teachers unions are so powerful that they frequently don't give younger, more energetic teachers the chance to change things up...

The problem with the US system is largely with the unions there - nothing inherent to the country or the people. This isn't an example of me having an inferiority complex or slinging boondoggles, it's an example of you once again pretending to know something about a field in which you demonstrably know nothing about. Just because your teachers couldn't leverage the technology doesn't make it my fault, nor does it damn the technology.

You should see the **** we get all the time from schools around the world that love the technology and genuinely think it has transformed their classrooms and enabled them to reach students who were rather impervious to learning before. I've personally visited dozens of schools, both in the US and Canada, that effectively use the technology and there is just no denying how much it engages students and teachers who choose to leverage it. I've also been to quite a few where a 60 year old teacher at the front of the classroom curses her laptop and the damned smartboard because she forgets how to minimize a window or doesn't know how to plug in a USB device. Unfortunately there's far more of the latter than the former, but that's not a problem with the technology - it's the user and their lack of motivation.

This is a good learning opportunity for you, HC - instead of taking your father's conservative attitude and blindingly applying it to everything in life while mocking those who may know better, perhaps you could actually research the field. Read the dozens of studies by third-party universities and organizations. There is a reason why it's so very easy to sell the technology into schools. The evidence is irrefutable, despite the idiots like you who stalk into every debate armed with ignorance and slinging mud.

[Hauldren Collider]

My schools didn't have unions. Or at least, meaningful ones. What union problem? You're again making blanket statements about the thousands of school districts in the united states.

It's hard to see "inherent issues in how US public education is run" when it isn't run at the federal level. Talk to me about how some individual state's education system is run, then I'll play ball.

[Asher]

My schools didn't have unions. Or at least, meaningful ones. What union problem? You're again making blanket statements about the thousands of school districts in the united states.

It's hard to see "inherent issues in how US public education is run" when it isn't run at the federal level. Talk to me about how some individual state's education system is run, then I'll play ball.

Which state doesn't have public school teacher unions?

I obviously can't speak specifically to every district and every teacher, and only a ****ing idiot would assume I could.

I'm speaking in general terms, quite obviously.

Maybe your teachers had other issues -- perhaps they had insufferable know-it-all students and tuned out?

[Hauldren Collider]

Virginia has public school unions, but they can do approximately dick. No collective bargaining rights whatsoever. They can't even collect union dues from most teachers since the state is right-to-work. So they basically exist as an option on teacher's paychecks to give money to Democrats. There are more than a dozen states like that, iirc.

[Asher]

Thanks for that completely irrelevant information to the larger discussion. I always appreciate pointless sidebars.

[Hauldren Collider]

Thanks for that completely irrelevant information to the larger discussion. I always appreciate pointless sidebars.

Idiot. You asked which state doesn't have teacher's unions. My answer: Virginia, and a number of other states (de facto).

But please, continue explaining to me how you can speak about the US education system in general terms, despite the huge variety in quality and policy.

[Asher]

Idiot. You asked which state doesn't have teacher's unions. My answer: Virginia, and a number of other states

You clearly told me it did have teachers unions.

So your point was I was wrong to mock the US public school system in general due to its teachers unions because that's NOT FEDERAL! It's state! So I ask which state doesn't have unions, and the answer is THEY ALL DO.

So your point is what?

You don't ****ing have one.

Ergo, irrelevant information.